“Bunge is a global leader in margarine production and this purchase enables us to expand our position in the U.S. market to support our customers,” said Soren Schroder, president and chief executive officer of Bunge North America. “With this additional capacity, we are strengthening our integrated food and ingredient value chain to provide additional products, improved risk management and better logistics to customers.”
Bunge said the two facilities have an annual capacity of nearly 400 million lbs of margarine. Products range from 5-gram portion cups that are used by restaurants to one-ton totes sold to food processors.
“Adding C.F. Sauer’s margarine assets to Bunge’s business opens up several exciting innovation opportunities for our lower saturated and reduced trans fat products,” said Rodney Perry, vice-president and general manager of Bunge Oils. “With the addition of the Sandston facility and its dedicated team, this new shipping location will help us better serve existing customers and reach out to new customers in an important market. We also look forward to working closely with C.F.S. in the transition at New Century.”
Bunge said it will begin operating the Sandston facility immediately and intends to relocate the margarine production and packaging assets from the New Century facility to other Bunge packaging plants. Until that relocation occurs, C.F.S. said it will continue to produce margarines for Bunge under a co-packing arrangement in order to meet Bunge’s customers' expectations.
The Sandston plant operates with about 160 employees.
