EDE, NETHERLANDS — Royal De Heus has reached an agreement to acquire Netherlands-based feed company Coppens Diervoeding.

The transaction includes a modern animal feed plant with a 400,000-tonne capacity and will increase De Heus’s production capacity. Including the newly acquired plant in Helmond, Netherlands, De Heus now has 10 animal feed plants in the Netherlands.

The acquisition is part of De Heus’s plan to make its feed production more flexible and expanding its capacity in the Netherlands.

“We are looking toward the future with confidence,” said Co de Heus, chief executive officer of Royal De Heus. “We also managed to achieve positive growth in a challenging market in recent years. We are grateful for the confidence and appreciation we receive from a growing number of customers. Market conditions, consumer needs and the demands of supermarket organizations are constantly changing.

“We intend to continue to support our customers to the best of our ability to help them meet the needs of supermarket organizations and consumers for chain concepts. To be able to do this, it is important for us to have sufficient production capacity and flexibility. The Coppens acquisition further increases our capability in this respect. Coppens is an extremely professional organization with dedicated employees. We look forward to a common future.”

The transaction still requires approval from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM).

“De Heus and Coppens share a long history in serving the livestock farming sector with high-quality feeds,” said Hendrik de Vor, managing director of Coppens. “Both companies are deeply rooted in the Dutch livestock farming sector. There has been mutual respect between the two companies for many years. We have many family and company values in common. We are therefore confident that in looking to the future, Coppens’s position and that of its employees will be properly safeguarded under De Heus’s wings.”

The addition of Coppen is De Heus’s most recent expansion. In March, De Heus acquired the Polish compound feed company Golpasz. With annual sales of almost 500,000 tonnes of compound feed, Golpasz is a market leader in turkey feed on the Polish market and has secured a leading position in broiler feed.

Royal De Heus is active in more than 70 countries through the export of concentrates and premixes, the main ones being in Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South America. Globally, the company has more than 6,000 employees.