Puratos Heads Rule Out Merger With CSM Bakery Ingredient Business, to Focus on Organic Growth

The CEO and chairman of the world’s second largest bakery ingredient company Puratos have ruled out acquiring any part of CSM’s bakery ingredient business, which is up for sale. “We are focusing on what we are doing well. We don’t believe that acquiring a lot of companies is something that is going to help us,” Daniel Malcorps, CEO of Puratos Group (pictured) told FoodIngredientsFirst.

5 Mar 2013 --- Eddy Van Belle, Chairman of the Board of Puratos Group also ruled out the possible acquisition of smaller parts, such as Caravan Ingredients. “There is no small part [of CSM] anyway. Part of the success of a company is its culture and the way of doing things. Once you start adding pieces it is difficult.”

CSM, which is the number one player in this space, announced on 7 May, 2012 its intention to transform the company into a bio-based ingredients company comprising its Purac and Caravan Ingredients businesses. This will involve a divestment process for its North American and European Bakery Supplies businesses.

Puratos has been involved in a number of “small but strategic” acquisitions in the past few years, whether in terms of regional expansion or acquiring technology, such as Purefood (Latvia), which gave the company a stronger presence in fruit processing technology. But the company’s growth targets, which were set in 2010 (when company sales were EUR1 billion), to reach EUR2 billion in 2018 and ultimately EUR5 billion in 2030 will come through organic growth rather than mergers.

Malcorps continued: “We believe one of the successes of Puratos year after year, which will continue to 2030 when we have plans to reach EUR5 billion in sales is the culture and the fact that we are a family company. We want to protect the elements of our culture that create that. Through suddenly merging a lot of different cultures you put that culture under threat.”

Yesterday, the Puratos Group confirmed its commitment to continue its investments in innovation and long-term R&D with a new Global R&D Center. The start of the construction of the new center, which will be built at the Group’s headquarters in Groot-Bijgaarden (Belgium), was marked with an official first stone ceremony in the presence of selected local officials, trade organisations and research partners.

The Global R&D Center, which is set to open by the summer of 2014, will play a pivotal role in Puratos’ global network of innovation and research centers across the world. As a leading global innovator in the bakery, patisserie and chocolate industry, research & development is at the centre of all activities of the Puratos Group. Mr. Filip Arnaut, R&D Director Group Research & Services Lab, comments: “R&D is the driving force behind our partnership with our customers around the globe. It is how Puratos’ long-term vision is translated into products and solutions to help our customers innovate and differentiate more in the future.”

With three state-of-the-art research platforms – a food technology laboratory, a baked products laboratory, and a biotechnology and analytical laboratory – covering some 6000m2, the new center will become a global hub for collaboration and research. The facility will be open to Puratos’ global R&D team, as well as research partners, including some leading universities.

For Puratos Group, the new Global R&D Center is part of a broad and long-term investment plan, in which innovation and research play a key role. In the course of 2013, a regional R&D center for Asia will open in Guangzhou (China), with another major R&D center set to open in the United States next year. Mr. Daniel Malcorps, CEO of Puratos Group, explains: “It is our firm belief that continued investment in the future is the best way to overcome today’s harsh economic climate. By doing so, we can continue to innovate and to improve the products and services we offer our customers, as well as inspire our customers. Ultimately, we want to help our customers to become even more successful in their business. With this new center, we confirm this commitment to our customers around the world.”

Mr. Eddy Van Belle, Chairman of the Board of Puratos Group, continues: “For more than 90 years already, continuous innovation has been the reason for our success. It is a constant process of risk taking and perseverance, which has been the basis for many success stories, like the T500, the very first complete bread improver, which we invented 60 years ago. Many other important innovations have followed since and keep Puratos and its products at the top of providing innovative solutions to our customers.”

By Robin Wyers