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Cosun business groups

All our industrial activities are based on the large-scale processing of vegetable raw materials, also known as green biomass. We are organised into five business groups and a number of smaller business units:

Suiker Unie processes sugar beet and produces sugar and sugar specialities.
Aviko processes potatoes into chips and a range of specialities, both chilled and frozen.
Sensus produces inulin and oligofructose from chicory for use in specific foodstuffs.
SVZ processes fruit and vegetables into concentrates and purees for the food industry.
At Duynie, everything revolves around getting the maximum value out of organic by-products from the food industry, including the Cosun business groups.
Cosun Biobased Products is a start-up business that markets special ingredients for non-food applications. Contact person: gerald.van.engelen@cosun.com
Cosun Food Technology Centre is the group's knowledge and expertise hub that combines and further develops knowledge about process technology and product development. Contact person: harry.raaijmakers@cosun.com

Optimal use

Cosun’s ambition is to make optimal use of all its vegetable raw materials. It has traditionally concentrated on foodstuffs as primary, high value applications. Virtually all our businesses also supply ingredients or residual flows that are used in animal feed or non-food applications. These flows include natural food fibres, starch applications, natural aromas, colourings and flavourings, recoverable minerals and fertilisers. Once all the usable substances have been recovered, the residues are increasingly being fermented to produce 'green' energy. The Cosun businesses work with each other and with other parties.

Biobased economy

This approach of successively extracting valuable components from the biomass is also known as cascading. The technologies we use are known as biorefinery, which has similarities with oil refinery, from which the term was derived. For more information on these themes, see www.biobasedeconomy.nl (only Dutch).

Cosun has its own pilot factory in Roosendaal to test and improve biorefinery processes in collaboration with the Cosun business groups and their customers.

A new business park – Nieuw Prinsenland (only Dutch) – is being built next to the sugar factory in Dinteloord (West Brabant). It will be dedicated to the agro & food industry and the biobased economy. The ambition is to create a profitable symbiosis by means of cooperation between the businesses on the park. The businesses will benefit from each other's proximity, products and residual flows, know-how and best practices. Cosun is also investing in a similar development at the sugar factory in Vierverlaten near to the city of Groningen. Contact person: paul.hagens@nieuwprinsenland.nl