Commodity merchant Louis Dreyfus creates food solutions unit

PARIS (Reuters) – Agricultural commodity merchant Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) has created a food and feed solutions business line as part of efforts to diversify its activities in step with consumer trends, the company said on Tuesday.

The new unit will focus on developing LDC’s presence in the lecithin, glycerine and speciality feed protein areas, it said in a statement, adding it was well placed to scale up in the nature-based ingredients market, including via targeted acquisitions.

Chief Commercial Officer James Zhou will lead the new business, LDC said.

“We expect the new Food & Feed Solutions Platform to become a solid base for the execution of LDC’s strategy to diversify revenue streams by transforming or upcycling agri-commodity by-products into value-added products and solutions,” Zhou said in the statement.

The group will draw on its existing portfolio in the processing of oilseeds, oils and fats, he added.

The push into specialised ingredients by international merchants was encouraged by shrinking margins in the past decade for selling and shipping crops, although profits have rebounded as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have fuelled market volatility.

(This story has been corrected to change the company name to LDC, not LED, in the fourth paragraph.)

(Reporting by Gus Trompiz and Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Jason Neely and Jon Boyle)