SUEZ (Paris, France; www.suez-environnement.fr) and the Avril Group have announced an alliance to produce and market organic fertilizers and soil conditioners for fertilization and soil structuring.
In this context and subject to the approval of the competition authorities, SUEZ will acquire a 32% stake in the share capital of the Avril Group subsidiary TERRIAL bringing its compost activities, which could subsequently be increased to 50%.
This partnership aims to tackle the growing challenge of sustainably producing and using food resources, while limiting chemical and artificial inputs. New means of recovering organic waste are being developed to supplement the potential provided by existing methanation and composting solutions.
The aim of this joint venture, which will be operational in the first half of 2019, is to provide an extended range of quality fertilizer products throughout France, mainly for agriculture and organic farming, wine-growing, market gardening and garden centers in particular. Within five years, the alliance should enable TERRIAL to supply almost one million tons of organic fertilizers on the French market.
Jean-Philippe Puig, CEO of the Avril Group stated: “TERRIAL has grown strongly in recent years, in particular due to changing farming practices and the strong demand from consumers of organic products. Welcoming SUEZ as TERRIAL’s will enable the company to continue to develop innovative fertiliser product ranges while meeting societal and environmental expectations, and enabling French farmers to capture this new demand and to limit the use of artificial inputs.”
Ollivier Pean, CEO of TERRIAL said: “TERRIAL aims to become a major player in organic fertilization and bio-stimulation in France, by meeting all the technical, environmental and societal expectations of its clients in retailing and agriculture. This alliance is fully in line with our ambition. It will reinforce our product offering and strengthen our presence in France, so that we can better support and secure the development of organic and agro-ecological agriculture, in keeping with the circular economy.”
The TERRIAL joint venture will benefit from reinforced and shared fertilizer production facilities in Chançay and Beaupréau-en-Mauges (both in France), as well as from inputs of new organic materials from farms and by around SUEZ’s sixty composting plants, thus guaranteeing local production of soil conditioners and fertilizers for the French market.
TERRIAL will present its new product range by the summer of 2019.
As a specialist in the fertilization and the recovery of organic co-products, TERRIAL recovers livestock effluents and organic residue from industrial activities as fertilizers, compost or methane to produce soil conditioners and renewable energy. In 2017, TERRIAL generated a turnover of €30 million, recovered 100,000 tons of industrial waste by methanation and 280,000 tons of organic fertilizers from French livestock farms.