Cargill, Teijin Joint Venture for NatureWorks Approved

05/12/07 Cargill and Teijin Limited of Japan announce that all required regulatory approvals for the 50/50 NatureWorks LLC joint venture have been received. Cargill and Teijin convened their first joint NatureWorks Board meeting on November 16th, signifying the formal beginning of the alliance.

This new investment by Teijin, as well as successful de-bottlenecking efforts by the NatureWorks production and engineering teams in the past several months, provides for both near-term and long term expanded capacity. Having experienced a period of managed growth in 2006 and early 2007, NatureWorks is now aggressively fueling new market development in a variety if segments ranging from fresh food packaging and disposable food serviceware to non-woven applications, apparel and home furnishings as well as durable goods. Products made with NatureWorks biopolymer are marketed as Ingeo innovations globally.

“Finalizing this joint venture solidifies one more milestone for the world’s first and largest commercial biopolymer manufacturer,” said NatureWorks CEO Dennis McGrew. “The elegant combination of Cargill’s front-end feedstock technology and access to world-class industry partners and Teijin’s leadership position with polymer and fiber applications will continue to enhance our ability to support our converter customers, brand-owners and retailers as they bring responsible innovation to a broad portfolio of consumer lifestyle products. This innovation by our more than 100 commercial partners has already contributed to over 20 broad applications families being offered at retail in more than 70,000 outlets worldwide. With this joint venture we are well poised to respond with the market, as it moves to satisfy the booming consumer desire for more responsible products.”

NatureWorks LLC is the first company to offer a family of commercially available low carbon footprint polymers derived from 100-percent annually renewable resources with cost and performance that compete with petroleum-based packaging materials and fibers. This polymer uses 65% less fossil fuels to produce and emits less than 80% greenhouse gases than traditional petroleum based polymers. The company applies its unique technology to the processing of natural plant sugars to create a proprietary polylactide polymer.