Dutch company DSM continues its strategy to develop activities in the field of life sciences with the announcement this week that it has acquired Plasticoat, the cheese coating business with an annual turnover of €10 million, from UK speciality starch company National Starch & Chemical.
From 1 July this year the Plasticoat business will be integrated into DSM Food Specialties - a business group within the Life Sciences Products cluster - and will join DSM's range of tailored coating systems such as Superdex and Delvocoat.
With the exception of The Netherlands, DSM has in fact held the distribution rights for Plasticoat since 1997. Within the Netherlands, the products are supplied through Centrale Aankoop FNZ.
This latest move by DSM is a further example of its strategic aim to grow sales - partly through acquisitions - to a level of approximately €10 billion by 2005. The company hopes that by that time at least 80 per cent of sales should be generated by specialities - advanced chemical and biotechnological products for the life science industry and performance materials.
Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.