Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) has announced the creation of a new food and feed solutions platform within its value chain segment which will be running from January 2023. Aimed to address favorable market trends and customer preferences toward healthy, nature-based products, the new platform will focus on developing and growing LDC’s presence in the lecithin, glycerin, and specialty feed protein space, leveraging the group’s raw material origination and processing capabilities.

“Demand growth for ingredients of natural origin is accelerating, fueled by increasing use in functional foods, nutraceutical products, personal care products, and other non-food and industry applications,” said Michael Gelchie, LDC’s CEO. “As part of LDC’s strategic plans for revenue diversification through more value-added products, we see an opportunity to participate in this fast-growing nature-based ingredients market.”

The group is expected to scale up its participation in the nature-based ingredients market through its global asset network and market presence, but also through the growth of production capacity as well as targeted acquisitions. At the same time, LDC is also investing to diversify and expand the geographic scope of its portfolio.

“We expect the new food and feed solutions platform to become a solid base for the execution of LDC’s strategy to diversify revenue streams by transforming or upcycling agri-commodity by-products into value-added products and solutions. To achieve this, we will build on existing capabilities in the processing of oilseeds, oils, and lipids ingredients and, eventually, other processing derivatives from LDC’s existing product portfolio,” said James Zhou, LDC’s CCO and new platform’s head of food & feed solutions.