Upcoming Chr. Hansen sale not hampering activity

A new Bogota office will open to serve the increasing number of cus-tomers in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, as the South American demand for high quality processed foods recovers from the recent dive.

It is still a case of business as usual at Chr. Hansen, despite the date of April 22nd seemingly set for companies to place their bids for the Danish food ingredients giant. Despite the shadow of an impending sale looming, Chr. Hansen has continued its moves abroad with the opening of a new office in Bogota, Colombia. The Bogota office will open to serve the increasing number of cus-tomers in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, as the South American demand for high quality processed foods recovers from the recent dive.

Earlier this week, an American pension fund had reportedly offered 805 million euros for Chr. Hansen. Bids in the running are believed to range between 800 million euro and 1 billion euro, with Dutch company, DSM, the Irish Kerry Group and Swedish investor EQT, all being linked with a swoop for the company. According to reports, companies will have until the 22nd of April to place their bids, with a shortlist of two or three companies remaining after this date.

For the moment however, the company continues to open new offices, as its future owner still remains unclear. The latest strategy is to become “the first player in this new and very promising Colombian market.” Chr. Hansen has set up a full-fledged daughter company in Bogota, com-plete with storage facilities, laboratories and sales infrastructure that includes technical support.

Chr. Hansen reported that last year the company experienced 20 per cent growth in business in Brazil and Argentina combined, at a time when foreign investors were fleeing the region. “The past three years have certainly been tough, but the South American economy is beginning to pick up speed again,” Jan Boeg-Hansen at the company said. Recent South American moves have in-cluded the expansion of the plant in Quilmes near Buenos Aires in Argentina has just added an-other 2.000 square meters of laboratories, office space and a pilot plant.

“The South American market was important for us before it took a dive. The consumption of processed foods declined dramatically because of sudden economic developments most notably in Argentina, because it happened overnight, but also in Brazil,” Boeg-Hansen told FoodIngredientsFirst. While many foreign companies left the area, Chr. Hansen were convinced it would re-bound and went the company went about developing new or less expensive products, in anticipa-tion of the economic rebound. Colors and flavors developed at the Argentine and Brazilian plants have included new protein complexes for prepared meats such as hams and sausages.

The latest move is to advance in Colombia, which Boeg-Hansen calls, “the food basket of Cen-tral America.” A highly innovative food industry supplies Venezuela, Guatemala, Panama and Ecuador.

“Our vision is to improve the quality of food and health for people all over the world. This is an area in which our company has a lot to offer, and certainly this is also applicable to Colombia,” says Erik Sørensen, President and CEO of Chr. Hansen. “We are up to the challenge, especially in terms of bringing our concepts of natural food ingredients to the local market, where we ex-pect to apply our wealth of ideas to match the unique food and taste preferences of our Colom-bian customers,” he added.

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