ABF Ingredients

05/11/2007 : ABF Ingredients Announce Expansion into China with Yeast Extracts

ABF Ingredients have today announced a further expansion of their Ohly Yeast Extracts business with the building of a new Yeast Extracts plant in Acheng, Harbin, China.

The plant will produce a full range of Yeast Extract Specialties and will be part of a joint expansion with its sister company, AB Mauri, who will further expand in Bakers Yeast at the existing Acheng, Harbin site in the Heilong Jiang province in North Eastern China.

The plant will produce in excess of 15,000 tonnes of Yeast Extracts for the food and fermentation markets. It will be on stream in 2009 with an investment of approximately $50million.

ABF Ingredients CEO, Stephen Catling said "this is a logical expansion to our Ohly Yeast Specialties business which further compliments our ability to service the market globally with our existing plants in Europe and the USA."

During 2006 and 2007, the company spent in excess of $15million on selective capacity expansions in their plants in Boyceville, Wisconsin and Hamburg, Germany.

CEO Ohly and Yeast Specialty Proteins, Robert Rouwenhorst said "the Yeast Extract market continues to grow, especially in the Asian region, we will be well placed to meet this demand".

ABF Ingredients is a division of Associated British Foods focusing on high value ingredients for food and non-food areas. Comprising of a range of ingredient companies including; AB Enzymes, ABITEC, Ohly, PGP International, Proteol and Protient.

The group have established strong market positions in cereal specialties, emulsifiers, enzymes, esters, extruded ingredients, lactose, specialty lipids, specialty powders, specialty flours, yeast extracts, whey protein concentrates/isolates and milk protein concentrates/isolates with locations worldwide.

For further information please contact Tracy Scribbins, Group Marketing Manager, ABF Ingredients, via email: tscribbins@abfingredients.com

09/08/2007 : PGP International acquires Riverbend Rice Mill Inc.

PGP International, a Division of ACH Food Companies, Inc. and an ABF Ingredients Company, today announced the acquisition of US specialty rice mill business, Riverbend Rice Mill, Inc., a specialty sweet rice milling company.

Riverbend Rice Mill, Inc. is strategically located in Colusa, CA, about fifty miles from PGP International’s operations in Woodland, CA, and in the epicenter of rice growing area of Northern California. Riverbend Rice Mill, Inc. was founded in 1993 to meet the specialty rice milling needs of its customers. From its founding to the present PGP International emerged as a major customer for its own export business.

At PGP International, we see the opportunity to vertically integrate our manufacturing operations and broaden our core capabilities through the addition of the Riverbend milling operation. This acquisition helps secure PGP International’s strong position in the short/waxy rice and rice flour blends (cake mix) markets in Japan and also provides opportunities for further product line expansion in support of our existing domestic flour business and the emerging organic rice flour business. Our intention is to expand our rice flour and blends product range by using the existing core capabilities at the rice milling facility and to add others in the future.

The former Riverbend Rice Mill will now become the PGP International Rice Milling Facility.

We look forward to Riverbend Rice Mill, Inc. being rapidly integrated into PGP International and we enthusiastically welcome all Riverbend employees into the PGP International/ABF Ingredients family.

13/07/2007 : DHW & Provesta merge to Ohly - An ABF Ingredients Company

Effective July 1st, 2007, the Provesta Flavor Ingredients business units located in Hutchinson, Minnesota and Boyceville, Wisconsin will merge with the business of Deutsche Hefewerke GmbH located in Hamburg, Germany and will trade under the name of:

Ohly Americas

The strategic realignment of these complementary business units within ABF Ingredients will benefit customers by providing an enhanced focus on production, development and distribution of specialty ingredients for the savoury food and nutrition markets.

Operations will remain as previous with products continuing to be manufactured under the same specifications and at the same location.

ABF Ingredients is a division of Associated British Foods focusing on high value ingredients for food and non-food areas. Comprising of a range of ingredient companies including; AB Enzymes, ABITEC, Ohly, PGP International, Proteol and Protient.

The group have established strong market positions in cereal specialties, emulsifiers, enzymes, esters, extruded ingredients, lactose, specialty lipids, specialty powders, specialty flours, yeast extracts, whey protein concentrates and isolates and milk protein concentrates and isolates with locations worldwide.