Lesaffre Invests €7 million in New Biospringer Drying Tower

29 Apr 2015 --- Lesaffre is continuing to diversify in the field of animal nutrition, health and well-being, investing in a third drying tower dedicated to parietal fractions of yeast, at our Biospringer site in Strasbourg.

On Thursday, April 23, 2015, Antoine Baule, Lesaffre’s Chief Executive Officer, Edouard Gestat, Biospringer EMEA’s General Manager, and Frédérique Clusel, Phileo’s General Manager, inaugurated a new yeast parietal fractions drying tower at the Biospringer site in Strasbourg. With the adjoining conditioning workshop, this new industrial machinery represents a €7 million investment. The site will now be able to supply Phileo, Lesaffre’s business unit specializing in animal nutrition, health and care, with close to 4,000 tons of yeast parietal fractions each year.

Lesaffre’s investments continue on a booming market.

Lesaffre is a key global player in the field of yeast and bread-making solutions, and is also active on a variety of markets, thanks to our additional business lines: taste and pleasure in food, health and well-being, and biotechnologies. In early 2014, the company announced its intention of raising the shares of those activities’ contributions to 30% of total group turnover in the space of five years. The investments made at the Bio Springer site in Strasbourg are a very concrete illustration of this desire, as well as an indication of the resources that the group is prepared to devote to its fulfillment.

The Biospringer plant in Strasbourg, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary last year, has been able to adapt and increase its production capacity in line with the market’s increasing demand. Because the two drying towers could not handle any more yeast extracts to dry, Lesaffre decided to invest in a third tower, more specifically designed for dry parietal fractions of yeasts. This resulted in €7 million being invested in industrial equipment, including a drying tower and an attached line that packages 25 kg bags. The tower was activated in November 2014, and the conditioning line in February 2015.

Specializing in the production of yeast extracts, Biospringer’s factory in Strasbourg spans 30,000 m² and employs some 50 team members. Its geographic proximity to the Sil Fala plant (a Lesaffre subsidiary) gives us control over the entire yeast production cycle at our Strasbourg site. Sil Fala manufactures the yeast cream, which is then transmitted to the Bio Springer site just a few yards away, through dedicated pipes. Next, the Biospringer factory produces yeast extracts and recovers the resulting parietal fractions, all of which is dried and packaged on site. The new drying tower will be able to produce roughly 500 kg of yeast parietal fractions per hour, or approximately 4,000 tons each year.