Dispatches from SupplySide West 2011
Stepan ends years of North American isolationism with strategic European nutrition shift
In 2010, Stepan Company, the New Jersey-based firm that had for decades supplied flavours and emulsifiers, decided to move into nutrition - a decision that led it to buying Dutch supplier Lipid Nutrition from Loders Croklaan for an undisclosed sum in June.
With three new healthy ingredient brands in its portfolio – Clarinol (CLA) , PinnoThin (pine) and Marinol (omega-3) – the reborn entity known as Stepan Lipid Nutrition has a new Dutch headquarters and big plans to maximise multinational synergies for a company that freely admits to previously possessing a very North American-centric worldview.
Global business manager, Emile Henein, said the newcomer has some ideas about how to tackle obstacles created by that troublesome body, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), that has rejected so much nutrition science – including Lipid Nutrition’s.
