The Pilardière group is located in Vendée and employs 44 people. It produces over 27,000 tons of mineral feed, premixes and nutritional specialties, primarily for ruminants, according to Neovia.
The company enjoys long-term relationships and strong positions with manufacturer customers and private distributors, it added.
Hubert de Roquefeuil, CEO of Neovia, told FeedNavigator the drivers for the deal were a “stronger foothold in the mineral and specialties segment in France, acquisition of a new expertise [in the] manufacturing [of] salt licks for ruminants, and enrichment of the global Wisium offer.”
Pilardière has also developed, in partnership with insemination cooperatives, an approach that combines mineral nutrition, nutrigenomics and epigenetic, which Neovia said are areas of research that complement its own priority fields of innovation.
The parties did not disclose the monetary terms of the deal. In terms of how financially robust Pilardière is, the Neovia CEO said its profitability was “in line with the French premix market.”
Despite the decrease in the production of compound feed in France since 2001, the highly competitive French minerals and premixes market remains relatively stable, with output of around 300,000 tons per year, noted the French group.
Another French ruminant segment deal..
March 2017 also saw Neovia move to shore up its position on the specialty nutrition market by acquiring Agranix, a French producer of nutritional products for ruminants and horses.
"It is a deal which gives us new technology - cold granulation and bolus - and provides plenty of potential for synergies in the equine segment in France, where we are the leader, and in Mexico and Brazil, where we hold strong positions.
"The new feed technology will also be useful for the ruminant segment, particularly for dairy cattle in France, where we are one of the key players, and in other markets as well. However, it is not a major deal in financial terms, Agranix is a small scale producer," Matthieu Leroy, head of projects, Neovia, told us then.
French plant extracts alliance
Meanwhile, last month saw Neovia join forces with French plant extracts player, Naturex, to study and develop botanicals for animal nutrition. The two companies said the long-term scientific partnership would see them collaborating either directly or through their subsidiaries.
“We have always been interested in botanicals. Plant extracts are a great source of functional ingredients, one of Neovia's five major fields of innovation for feed. The alliance with Naturex is an opportunity for Neovia to speed up and enlarge its development in that field,” said Mathieu Tournat, R&D and innovation director, Neovia.