DSM cultivates plant protein interests with €65m Vestkorn Milling buy
The deal further bolsters DSM’s intentions to build an alternative protein business providing support for the expected launch of its CanolaPRO rapeseed protein isolate next year.
“We very much look forward to welcoming Vestkorn Milling and their team to DSM,” says Patrick Niels, Executive Vice President of DSM’s Food & Beverage division.
“Increasingly, food and beverage producers around the world are looking to partners who can offer an integrated portfolio of ingredients, expertise, and solutions to help them differentiate and get to market fast.
“This is especially important in the highly dynamic meat alternatives space, where consumer and societal expectations around authentic taste, texture, and nutritional profile, as well as climate impact, are becoming more and more sophisticated.”
Pulse-based ingredients
Vestkorn Milling, a company based in Tau on the south-west coast of Norway, specialises in supplying proteins, starches and dietary fibres for plant-based foods, pet food and animal feed.
Its products can be considered complementary to DSM’s current offerings that count vitamins, algal lipids and minerals, texturizing hydrocolloids; flavours, yeast extracts and enzymes that boost protein taste and functionality.
“Through the cooperation with DSM we have taken a huge step towards becoming a global leader of pulse-based ingredients,” adds Aslak Lie, CEO of Vestkorn Milling.
“Over the past years we have significantly expanded our business and market. With DSM, we have got a long-term oriented owner that will fuel further growth and expansion.
“We are thrilled by this opportunity, and we look forward to being a part of the DSM team.”
DSM reorganisation
The acquisition ties in well with DSM’s decision to reorganise its Health, Nutrition & Bioscience activities into three Business Groups, announced in September.
The Groups are a Food & Beverage Business Group combining the food, beverage and pet food activities of the current DSM Food Specialties and DSM Nutritional Products divisions.
The Business Group’s portfolio includes breakthrough innovations such as EverSweet, a natural calorie-free sweetener, as well as CanolaPRO.
It will also be home to the dairy-based flavourings from First Choice Ingredients, a €400m purchase also in September, which adds clean label dairy-based flavour solutions derived from fermentation processes.
The purchase also means DSM can offer their products outside the US and integrate First Choice’s products in DSM’s offerings on taste, texture and health for Food & Beverage customers.
DSM are also looking to develop its Health, Nutrition & Care Business Group, which provides solutions for consumers in early-life nutrition, dietary supplements, and nutrition improvement.
Current offerings include ampli-D, a form of vitamin D, and personalised nutrition initiatives such as Hologram Sciences, and Glycom, a supplier of HMO-prebiotics.
The Animal Nutrition & Health Business Group intends to focus on solutions for animal protein production and recently welcomed the recently acquired Erber Group, a supplier of eubiotics and the fish-oil algae-alternative Veramaris.
