4
NEWS Sylvan France invests and celebrates
In October, Sylvan announced its decision to invest in the expansion of its breeding labo- ratory in Langeais, France.
The first stone of the new labo- ratory was placed on the 4th of October in the presence of Mark Snyder, President and CEO of Sylvan and Mel O’ Rourke, European Managing Director, and the team in charge of the project. The completion of the building is scheduled for June 2014 with an operational start in September 2014. The €3 million investment in a new facility and advanced equipment, particularly biology molecular tools, will double Sylvan’s crossing capacity and further enhances its com- mitment to Agaricus & Exotic mushroom breeding.
40th Anniversary Somycel On the same day, Snyder and
Somycel employees at the 40th an- niversary of the company.
O’Rourke, and Peter Kucera, CFO of Sylvan Europe, joined the employees of Somycel, the French factory of the group based in Langeais, to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The Somycel plant was built in 1973 in Langeais in the Loire Valley. At that time, this was the pre-eminent European region for mushroom growing. The stra- tegy of the company was to be close to their clients and to offer to the market the most modern and efficient spawn facility. However, Somycel’s story goes back further in time, in 1944 the Guiochon family set up a mushroom spawn facility and mushroom growing in caves in Mesnil- le-Roi, Paris. In 1974, the Guiochon family sold the com- pany to the Heinz-Perrier Group. Under this company, Somycel extended its market presence outside France to other Euro- pean territories, evolved its
Placing the fi rst stone with Mark Snyder (far left) and Mel O’Rourke (middle).
processes and products and put in place a structured quality management system. In 1991,
Somycel was bought by Sylvan Inc., an American mushroom spawn producer since 1920. Between 1979 and 1990, 9 plant extensions occurred at Somycel so as to meet with the increa- sing demand for Sylvan spawn products. Somycel is today the largest facility of the Sylvan group with a production of more than 18 million litres per year and a team of 130 employees. Sylvan regards its success due to the passion and expertise of its people. At the 40th Anniversary more than 60 employees were honoured for their contribution to the company during the years.
Legro Group and Kalloveen buy Seda
The Legro Group and Kal- loveen together bought the company AS Seda in Latvia, Topterra Holland (part of Le- gro) announced December 6th.
Seda was established in 1954 and is today one of the largest peat bogs in this country. The compa- ny has 1,500 hectares of peat and a production for peat substrates. Kalloveen will manage the peat
fields and sales of raw materials and Legro the substrate produc- tion. Lam Janssen, director of Topterra: “With this purchase of our parent company we now can, if required, also produce and ship directly from Latvia. With this we are assured of raw materials for now and the far future.”
Legro and Kalloveen The Legro Group (Topterra
Holland, Legro Potgrond and Legro Transport), specializes in producing and supplying quality peat products and their transport. The group has three production sites, one in the Netherlands, one in Germany and one in India. lts sales offi- ces are located in the Nether- lands, Germany and Australia. Topterra is one of the largest mushroom casing suppliers to
the world. Kalloveen owns one of the largest peat terminals in Europe, which is located in the Belgian port of Antwerp. With this latest purchase they can deliver most of the raw ma- terials for the peat substrates industry from their own bogs.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44
