The Soufflet Group

Last updated
Groupe Soufflet
Company typeSociété anonyme (a joint stock company under French law)
Industryactivities of head offices  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Founded1900;124 years ago (1900)
Headquarters,
France
Key people
Michel Soufflet, Jean-Michel Soufflet, Laurence Soufflet
Revenue€4,61M (2021) [1]
Number of employees
2,521 (in France) 7,041 (in 19 countries)
Website soufflet-agro.ru/en

The Soufflet Group was a French [2] family-owned agro-industrial business which specialised in collecting and adding value to agricultural raw materials.

Contents

Overview

The Group primarily operated in the wheat and barley sectors in France, Europe, and Asia. It supported arable farmers with grain collection and cereal processing; advised on malting, cereal production and export, and assisted vine growers and winemakers. [3]

The OSIRIS Programme

In 2008, the Group became a key player in the OSIRIS programme, researching new ways of improving agricultural resources, animal nutrition and generating biofuels. OSIRIS also included the Laboratory of Biochemistry at ESPCI-ParisTech, and Maguin S.A.S., (a leading French company in the ethanol-production industry). [4] In total, OSIRIS spent €77 million over eight years: partly funded by Oséo, along with four regional biotechnology research programmes: PRBR - Programmes de Recherche Biotechnologique Régionaux (FEDER), the Champagne-Ardenne region, the department of Aube, and the town of Nogent-sur-Seine. [5]

Fields of Business

The Soufflet Group had nine businesses:

Agriculture

France's top private collector of cereals and oil seeds, Soufflet Agriculture stores and markets farm production, and retails agricultural supplies in France and five other European countries.

Vine

Soufflet Vigne offers vine growers, winemakers, cooperatives and merchants a range of products and services, together with technical advice.

Trading

Trading wagon Soufflet Negoce-soufflet.jpg
Trading wagon Soufflet

The Group's Trading Division, Soufflet Négoce, has 4 trading offices and 4 port silos (in the Atlantic, the Channel and the Black Sea). It specialises in sourcing, transporting and exporting cereals, oilseeds and dairy products.

Milling

With 10 mills in France and Belgium, Moulins Soufflet prepares and markets flours for its different types of customers: traditional bakers, flour-using industries and major retailers. Moulins Soufflet also owns the Baguépi brand name.

Ingredients

Formulating tailor-made ingredients, AIT Ingredients offers solutions[ buzzword ] meeting the various problems its industrial customers face, mainly in the breadmaking sector. The company is developing in the European and African markets as well as in Russia, the Middle East and South America.

Malting

Malteries Soufflet is one of the world's main producers of kilned and roasted malt and caramels.

Maize processing

Specializing in the first conversion of maize, Costimex produces and markets worldwide maize hominies, grits, semolina and flour tailored to the various requirements of brewers and snack and breakfast cereal manufacturers.[ citation needed ]

Rice and pulses

An industrial company specialising in processing and packing rice and pulses, Soufflet Alimentaire, which has three plants in France, including one in partnership – offers more than 120 materials and 2,000 product lines for the industrial, ethnic, catering and retail markets.

Soufflet Alimentaire (the food division) develops as well as markets products that can be microwaved by end-users under its Vivien Paille brand name.

Biotechnology

In Solid State Fermentation (SSF), the Soufflet Group works in the field of biotechnologies applied to innovative biocatalysts from agricultural resources.

Its Caen-based Lyven subsidiary formulates and produces SSF enzyme solutions for the fruit processing, drinks, bakery, animal feed and biofuel sectors.

History

historic mill Soufflet Moulinsoufflet-historique-soufflet.jpg
historic mill Soufflet
Soufflet Headquarters Siege-soufflet.jpg
Soufflet Headquarters

Acquisition by InVivo Group

In December 2021, The Soufflet Group was acquired by the InVivo Group. [6] To help finance the acquisition, InVivo planned to sell a minority stake in Soufflet's malt division to KKR (KKR.N), Credit Agricole (CAGR.PA), and Bpifrance for 440 million euros. [7]

Related Research Articles

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A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize. Edible grains from other plant families, such as buckwheat and quinoa are pseudocereals. Most cereals are annuals, producing one crop from each planting, though rice is sometimes grown as a perennial. Winter varieties are hardy enough to be planted in the autumn, becoming dormant in the winter, and harvested in spring or early summer; spring varieties are planted in spring and harvested in late summer. The term cereal is derived from the name of the Roman goddess of grain crops and fertility, Ceres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malt</span> Germinated cereal grains that have been dried

Malt is a cereal grain that has been made to germinate by soaking in water and then stopped from germinating further by drying with hot air, a process known as "malting". Malted grain is used to make beer, whisky, malted milk, malt vinegar, confections such as Maltesers and Whoppers, flavored drinks such as Horlicks, Ovaltine, and Milo, and some baked goods, such as malt loaf, bagels, and Rich Tea biscuits. Malted grain that has been ground into a coarse meal is known as "sweet meal".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aube</span> Department of France

Aube is a French department in the Grand Est region of north-eastern France. As with sixty departments in France, this department is named after a river: the Aube. With 310,242 inhabitants (2019), Aube is the 74th department in terms of population. The inhabitants of the department are known as Aubois or Auboises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eure-et-Loir</span> Department of France

Eure-et-Loir is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers. It is located in the region of Centre-Val de Loire. In 2019, Eure-et-Loir had a population of 431,575.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grain elevator</span> Grain storage building

A grain elevator is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lower level and deposits it in a silo or other storage facility.

Field corn, also known as cow corn, is a North American term for maize grown for livestock fodder, ethanol, cereal, and processed food products. The principal field corn varieties are dent corn, flint corn, flour corn which includes blue corn, and waxy corn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Croissy-sur-Seine</span> Commune in Île-de-France, France

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Post Consumer Brands is an American consumer packaged goods food manufacturer headquartered in Lakeville, Minnesota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pearl millet</span> Species of cultivated grass

Pearl millet is the most widely grown type of millet. It has been grown in Africa and the Indian subcontinent since prehistoric times. The center of diversity, and suggested area of domestication, for the crop is in the Sahel zone of West Africa. Recent archaeobotanical research has confirmed the presence of domesticated pearl millet on the Sahel zone of northern Mali between 2500 and 2000 BC. 2023 was the International Year of Millets, declared by the United Nations General Assembly in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gofio</span> Toasted flour from the Canary Islands

Gofio is a sort of Canarian flour made from roasted grains or other starchy plants, some varieties containing a little added salt. Gofio has been an important ingredient in Canarian cooking for some time, and Canarian emigrants have spread its use to the Caribbean and the Western Sahara. There are various ways to use it, such as kneading, dissolving in soup, and baking. It can also be used as a thickener. It is also found in Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile, where it is known as harina tostada and is employed in a wide variety of recipes. The gofio commercially available in the Canary Islands is always finely ground, like ordinary flour, despite the definition given in the Spanish Dictionary of the Royal Academy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nogent-sur-Seine</span> Subprefecture and commune in Grand Est, France

Nogent-sur-Seine is a commune in the Aube department in north-central France. The headquarters of The Soufflet Group is located here, as is the Musée Camille Claudel. The large Nogent Nuclear Power Plant is located here.

ABB Grain was Australia's largest agribusiness. Founded in 1939, the company was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange until its takeover by Viterra in 2009. For most of its history, the company focused solely on grain accumulation and marketing, but it eventually expanded its focus to other activities, such as grain receival and storage, malting and fertilisers.ABB bought grain from all growing regions in Australia and traded in all grain commodities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malt house</span> Building where cereal grain is converted into malt

A malt house, malt barn, or maltings, is a building where cereal grain is converted into malt by soaking it in water, allowing it to sprout and then drying it to stop further growth. The malt is used in brewing beer, whisky and in certain foods. The traditional malt house was largely phased out during the twentieth century in favour of more mechanised production. Many malt houses have been converted to other uses, such as Snape Maltings, England, which is now a concert hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maize</span> Genus of grass cultivated as a food crop

Maize, also known as corn in North American and Australian English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native Americans planted it alongside beans and squashes in the Three Sisters polyculture. The leafy stalk of the plant gives rise to male inflorescences or tassels which produce pollen, and female inflorescences called ears which yield grain, known as kernels or seeds. In modern varieties, these are usually yellow or white; other varieties can be of many colors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grain</span> Edible dry seed

A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legumes.

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Michel Soufflet is a French industrialist and the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of his family company, the Soufflet Group, which is the largest miller of grain and producer of malt in France. In 2018, his fortune was reported as €1 billion.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kairi Maize Silos</span> Historic site in Queensland, Australia

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References

  1. https://www.devex.com/organizations/soufflet-group-66432
  2. "Groupe Soufflet - Company Profile and News". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2023-01-04.
  3. "Groupe Soufflet SA | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  4. "Laboratoire de biochimie : OSIRIS: Development of droplet-based microfluidic platform for the high-throughput screening of industrial micro-organisms". www.lbc.espci.fr. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  5. "EU gives nod to state aid for OSIRIS". Science|Business. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  6. "InVivo completes the acquisition of Soufflet Group | InVivo". www.invivo-group.com. 2021-12-09. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  7. France’s InVivo aims to become top world malt producer after Soufflet takeover | Reuters