Deals this week: ABP Food Group, Lesaffre

ABP Food Group has joined a European consortium as a lead partner for a food research project aimed at addressing the challenges faced by the food supply chain and improving the food production levels.

The €1.2bn ($1.26bn) research project is partly funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which has committed to provide €400m ($421.6m).

Four innovation programmes, namely FoodConnects Assistant, The Web of Food, Your Farm2Fork and The Zero Waste Agenda, will be launched under the project.

As part of its strategy to expand in nutrition and health segments, yeast company Lesaffre has purchased the yeast extract food business and a plant located in Strasbourg, France, from Sensient.

The plant anufactures cell walls and brewer’s yeast extracts, and has been renamed as Lesaffre Culinary Strasbourg following the acquisition.