Silvateam

Last updated
Silvateam S.p.A.
Type Family owned business
Founded1854
Headquarters San Michele Mondovì (Cuneo) - Italy
Revenue122 million euro (2012)
Website www.silvateam.com

Silvateam S.p.A. is a producer of tannins and specialty chemicals mainly for leather industry. [1] It was formed in 1854, when Carlo Giuseppe Battaglia built the first plant in Frabosa Corsaglia (Cuneo, northern Italy) for the extraction of tannins from chestnut wood. [2] The headquarters is located in San Michele Mondovì (Cuneo), with operations in Italy, Argentina, Peru and China. The group has approximately 800 employees with a turnover of 122 million euro. [3]

Contents

Activities

The company's activities were structured into three main lines of business: leather, food ingredients and animal nutrition.

The Leather business focuses on products for leather tanning and comprises vegetable extracts, synthetic tannins and fatliquors, [4] while the Food Ingredients business supplies pectin, Tara gum for food and beverage industry. [5] The animal nutrition division is dedicated to the production of natural extracts for monogastrics and ruminants. [6] [7]

Related Research Articles

Flavor, flavour, or taste is the perceptual impression of food or other substances, and is determined primarily by the chemical senses of the gustatory and olfactory system. The "trigeminal senses", which detect chemical irritants in the mouth and throat, as well as temperature and texture, are also important to the overall gestalt of taste perception. The taste of food, can be altered naturally or artificially.

Starch glucose polymer used as energy store in plants

Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. It is the most common carbohydrate in human diets and is contained in large amounts in staple foods like potatoes, maize (corn), rice, wheat and cassava (manioc).

Chickpea Species of flowering plant with edible seeds in the family Fabaceae

The chickpea or chick pea is an annual legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. Its different types are variously known as gram or Bengal gram, garbanzo or garbanzo bean, or Egyptian pea. Chickpea seeds are high in protein. It is one of the earliest cultivated legumes, and 7500-year-old remains have been found in the Middle East.

Tannin Class of astringent, bitter plant polyphenolic chemical compounds

Tannins are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids.

<i>Umami</i> One of the five basic tastes

Umami, or savoriness, is one of the five basic tastes. It has been described as savory and is characteristic of broths and cooked meats.

Chestnut Genus of plants

The chestnuts are a group of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus Castanea, in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

Tanning (leather) Process of treating animal skin to produce leather

Tanning is the process of treating skins and hides of animals to produce leather. A tannery is the place where the skins are processed.

Dog food is food specifically formulated and intended for consumption by dogs and other related canines. Dogs are considered to be omnivores with a carnivorous bias. They have the sharp, pointed teeth and shorter gastrointestinal tracts of carnivores, better suited for the consumption of meat than of vegetable substances, yet also have 10 genes that are responsible for starch and glucose digestion, as well as the ability to produce amylase, an enzyme that functions to break down carbohydrates into simple sugars - something that carnivores lack. Dogs evolved the ability living alongside humans in agricultural societies, as they managed on scrap leftovers from humans.

Polyphenol Class of chemical compounds

Polyphenols are a large family of naturally occurring organic compounds characterized by multiples of phenol units. They are abundant in plants and structurally diverse. Polyphenols include flavonoids, tannic acid, and ellagitannin, some of which have been used historically as dyes and for tanning garments.

<i>Castanea sativa</i> Species of tree

Castanea sativa, the sweet chestnut, Spanish chestnut or just chestnut, is a species of tree in the family Fagaceae, native to Southern Europe and Asia Minor, and widely cultivated throughout the temperate world. A substantial, long-lived deciduous tree, it produces an edible seed, the chestnut, which has been used in cooking since ancient times.

Catechu

Catechu is an extract of acacia trees used variously as a food additive, astringent, tannin, and dye. It is extracted from several species of Acacia, but especially Senegalia catechu, by boiling the wood in water and evaporating the resulting brew. It is also known as cutch, black cutch, cachou, cashoo, terra Japonica, or Japan earth, and also katha in Hindi, kaath in Marathi, khoyer in Assamese and Bengali, and kachu in Malay.

Phytochemical

Phytochemicals are chemical compounds produced by plants, generally to help them resist fungi, bacteria and plant virus infections, and also consumption by insects and other animals. The name comes from Greek φυτόν (phyton) 'plant'. Some phytochemicals have been used as poisons and others as traditional medicine.

Tannic acid Chemical compound

Tannic acid is a specific form of tannin, a type of polyphenol. Its weak acidity (pKa around 6) is due to the numerous phenol groups in the structure. The chemical formula for commercial tannic acid is often given as C76H52O46, which corresponds with decagalloyl glucose, but in fact it is a mixture of polygalloyl glucoses or polygalloyl quinic acid esters with the number of galloyl moieties per molecule ranging from 2 up to 12 depending on the plant source used to extract the tannic acid. Commercial tannic acid is usually extracted from any of the following plant parts: Tara pods (Caesalpinia spinosa), gallnuts from Rhus semialata or Quercus infectoria or Sicilian sumac leaves (Rhus coriaria).

Animal product

An animal product, also known as lacticinia, is any material derived from the body of an animal. Examples are fat, flesh, blood, milk, eggs, and lesser known products, such as isinglass and rennet.

Natural growth promoters (NGPs) are feed additives for farm animals.

Soy protein

Soy protein is a protein that is isolated from soybean. It is made from soybean meal that has been dehulled and defatted. Dehulled and defatted soybeans are processed into three kinds of high protein commercial products: soy flour, concentrates, and isolates. Soy protein isolate has been used since 1959 in foods for its functional properties.

Procyanidin

Procyanidins are members of the proanthocyanidin class of flavonoids. They are oligomeric compounds, formed from catechin and epicatechin molecules. They yield cyanidin when depolymerized under oxidative conditions.

Arthur Waldorf Thomas was a professor and chemist who specialized in colloid chemistry. He studied and taught at Columbia University for 50 years.

Condensed tannin

Condensed tannins are polymers formed by the condensation of flavans. They do not contain sugar residues.

Like the human practice of veganism, vegan dog foods are those formulated with the exclusion of ingredients that contain or were processed with any part of an animal, or any animal byproduct. Vegan dog food may incorporate the use of fruits, vegetables, cereals, legumes, nuts, vegetable oils, and soya, as well as any other non-animal based foods. The omnivorous domestic canine has evolved to metabolize carbohydrates and thrive on a diet lower in protein, and therefore, a vegan diet is nutritionally adequate for dogs if properly formulated and balanced. Dogs can also thrive on a vegetarian diet.

References

  1. Silvateam: world leather in vegetable extracts. ShopTalk!, June 2009, pp. 30-33.
  2. The Valleys of Tannin: A History of Entrepreneurial Families from Mondovì. A. Bienati, R. Ghiringhelli, Trauben, 2005.
  3. The Chemical Industry in Italy 2013 Archived 2014-09-05 at the Wayback Machine . Federchimica, 2013.
  4. Alternative vegetable pretan systems. Leather International Magazine, 2009.
  5. Food for thought. Ingredients Insight. November 2012, p. 55.
  6. Schiavone, A.; Guo, K.; Tassone, S.; Gasco, L.; Hernandez, E.; Denti, R.; Zoccarato, I. (2008). "Effects of a Natural Extract of Chestnut Wood on Digestibility, Performance Traits, and Nitrogen Balance of Broiler Chicks". Poultry Science. 87 (3): 521–527. doi: 10.3382/ps.2007-00113 . PMID   18281579.
  7. Mezzomo, R.; Paulino, P.V.R.; Detmann, E.; Filho, S.C. Valadares; Paulino, M.F.; Monnerat, J.P.I.S.; Duarte, M.S.; Silva, L.H.P.; Moura, L.S. (2011). "Influence of condensed tannin on intake, digestibility, and efficiency of protein utilization in beef steers fed high concentrate diet". Livestock Science. 141 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2011.04.004.