PARIS (Reuters) - French oilseed group Avril and farm cooperative Terrena will launch a new business next year to produce meal for animal feed and organic vegetable oil, they said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
The project, called Oleosyn Bio, aims to secure supplies and prices over several years, the two groups said.
The new unit will be based in Thouars, Brittany, in a plant formally used by Avril's Sanders branch to produce animal feed. It will have a crushing capacity of 30,000 tonnes of oilseeds, mainly rapeseed and sunseed, per year.
It will be launched in early 2020 and be fully operational at the end of next year, they said.
Output will be used in Terrena and Sanders' animal feed plants in Western France while the organic oil will mainly be transformed into table oil by Avril under the Lesieur brand.
Avril's financial arm Sofiptoteol and Esfin Gestion, a unit of French bank Credit Cooperatif, are taking a share in the project, which remains open to other investors, they said in the statement.
The Aquitaine region and Agence Bio will also contribute to a total planned investment of 5.7 million euros, a spokeswoman said.
(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
