The acquired business is located in Pannecé, in the western part of France.
SugaRich, which recycles surplus factory food into animal feed and looks to help companies recover the value from their surplus, wants to expand internationally by growing its presence in new territories and reaching an even wider customer base, said Alex Keogh, MD, SugaRich.
The former foods sector is developing at pace, with food manufacturers looking for closer, more intrinsic relationships to support them in reducing food waste, said the UK firm.
Through the deal, SugaRich inherits the employees, a strong supplier base, and the existing customers. The UK company said that it will endeavour to build on that current processing platform by bringing industry leading technology to the French operations, enabling it to build “a larger, stronger and more dynamic business.”
Duynie SASU, part of the Dutch agri-industrial cooperative Royal Cosun, has decided to concentrate its business on the direct supply of moist and liquid co-product feeds to French livestock farmers, bringing its business model in line with its sister companies trading across Europe under the Duynie Feed brand.
SugaRich provides a full national factory surplus food production service, which, it said, allows it to manage the whole clearance process right from the factory floor to transportation away from site. "Each system is tailor-made to suit a company’s requirements, large or small, and is wholly owned and maintained by SugaRich."
Environmental impact of former food products
Separately, in December last year, we reported on how compounders can access new data to estimate the carbon footprint from use of former foodstuffs in feed.
That month saw the UK Former Foodstuff Processors Association (UKFFPA) and the UK's Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) release the first verified carbon footprint scores for former food products used in feed.
The data on the environmental impact of former food products, which have now been incorporated into the GFLI database, is extremely encouraging, said John Knight, technical and compliance director, SugaRich, and chair of UKFFPA.
In terms of the prompt for defining carbon data of former foodstuffs for use in feed, Knight said that, in addition to providing data for customers in the feed chain, it was also important that the association could demonstrate to the food factories, food distributors and retailers the economic and environmental value of reducing food waste.
“UKFFPA also undertook this project because it shows that by capturing the valuable nutrients present in foods that are no longer suitable for human consumption, but are safe to feed to livestock, former foods producers are clearly at the heart of the circular economy.”