FDBusiness.com

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is providing a €40 million loan to Sodiaal, the leading dairy co-operative in France and the third largest in Europe, to support the financing of its Research and Development program. The transaction is part of the actions of the European Strategic Investment Fund (SIEF), also known as the ‘Juncker Plan’.

Sodiaal has 20,000 members and processes 4.7 billion litres of milk in 70 industrial sites in France. The entire R & D project in which the EIB is involved will represent a total amount of €80 million invested over the period 2018-2021.

Jorge Boucas.

“This funding illustrates our desire to focus on upgrading our product mix, in line with our #Value strategic transformation plan,” says Jorge Boucasm chief executive of Sodiaal. “It will enable us to develop our research and development activities for our European and global markets and will support in particular the development of our new research centre located in Rennes, Brittany, in the heart of the Milk Valley.”

Sodiaal will focus on the areas of infant nutrition, the functionalization of dairy components, processing technologies and new modes of food packaging, while strengthening its co-operation with public and private research institutes.

“This investment by the EIB – which is the bank of the European Union – is a reminder that Europe has made innovation financing one of its priorities,” says EIB vice-president Ambroise Fayolle. “Europe also wants to be fully committed to the development of agriculture, both to support the sector but also European consumers: after Roullier in 2018, Sodiaal is the second company in France financed by the EIB in the context the €400 million agricultural and bioeconomy lending program in Europe.”