Meurens Natural opens second plant as demand for natural ingredients accelerates

27 Sep 2017 --- Meurens Natural has delivered strong growth over the last few years, which has meant that its historic production site located at Herve (Belgium) has become overloaded. In response to increased market needs, the company has created a second efficient production site located in the Plenesses industrial estate at Thimister-Clermont in an investment worth €15 million (US$17.6 million). The site’s total surface area extends over 28,000m², with a 6,500m² building.

This project was completed in record time, with the first production successfully coming off the line 12 months after the start of the construction work. The company’s environmental approach has enabled numerous energy savings to be made in terms of the consumption of gas, water and electricity. 

The company currently has two production sites and three production lines. Active in the European organic and natural markets, the company exports 70 percent of its annual turnover.

Meurens Natural processes cereals and dried fruits into organic & natural ingredients for the agri-food sector. The company offers a unique range on the market: rice syrups, oat syrups, wheat syrups, manioc syrups, spelt syrups, malted barley syrups, date syrup, fig syrup and prune syrup. These ingredients can mainly be used to provide sweetness, flavor, color, crunchy and viscosity to biscuits, cereal bars, breakfast cereals, drinks, yogurts, sauces, ice creams and fruit preparations etc.   

Meurens Natural’s history is that of a family-run Belgian company with a long experience and wide knowledge in the agri-food sector. A pioneer in developing the organic sector with the Sipal brand, over the years Meurens Natural has become the European specialist in cereal hydrolysis, due to the originality of its production process and the variety of processed raw materials. So as to follow the growth in the organic sector efficiently and in an innovative way, the company will be undertaking several investment programs at the historic Herve site (bulk storage of syrups, packaging syrups and a mill with storage of raw materials, as well as a 2nd hydrolysis and concentration line).

In 2010, the company started on a new challenge: conquering the (natural) conventional products market with the launch of the Natu product range.  Following a number of food scares, lack of trust from consumers is increasing. Consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of their food's origin and demanding simpler and more transparent production processes.   

Food processing companies must adapt themselves to this and work with lists of ingredients that are shorter, more natural and more understandable. The company has taken the opportunity to offer an innovative range of ingredients on the conventional market that are the result of knowledge and requirements acquired from over 25 years in the organic sector. 

At Food Ingredients Europe (FiE) 2017 in Frankfurt later this year, Meurens Natural will be presenting their NATU range, a new range of spelt syrups with a wide variety of functionalities (sweetening, natural flavoring and coloring, texture, crunchy, etc.) for biscuits, cereal bars, breakfast, crackers, drinks, desserts, etc. 

Thanks to a natural production process (no use of chemical additives & process) Meurens Natural will preserve the original characteristics of the raw materials, allowing for a cleaner and shorter labeling offering: “spelt syrup” instead of “glucose syrup” or “sugar.” 

Sipal Partners, the specialist of non-refined organic cereals and dried fruits syrups, offers a wide variety of sweeteners, flavors, colors and other technical functionalities for all food and drink applications. The non-refining process preserves the benefit of the raw material and enables natural and shorter labeling i.e. “oat syrup” instead of “glucose” or “sugar.”