Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) has opened a food ingredient plant in Tianjin and a feed-premix plant in Nanjing, China, to cater to the increasing regional demand for value-added food-ingredients and animal-nutrition products.
The plant in Tianjin, which lies in the northeastern coastal city, will manufacture Fibersol soluble dietary fiber, while the Nanjing plant will manufacture feed-premix.
The Nanjing plant is the third feed-premix facility in the country.
Fibersol, which is sold and marketed through an ADM / Matsutani joint-venture, allows food and beverage manufacturers to boost fibre content of their products without making an impact on flavour, colour or viscosity.
The Tianjin plant will have an annual production capacity of 15,000t.
ADM CEO Juan Luciano said: "As more and more Chinese citizens enter the middle class, we expect that demand for Fibersol and other value-added food ingredients made by ADM will remain robust well into the future."
The Nanjing facility, which will manufacture nutritional premixes for animal products, will have an annual production capacity of approximately 30,000t.
Besides the Nanjing facility, the company owns premix facilities in Tianjin and Dalian, and a fourth plant is currently being constructed in Zhangzhou.
"As China continues transitioning from a manufacturing-driven economy to a consumption-based economy, its middle class will continue to expand, and meat consumption will continue to grow," Luciano said.
The US Department of Agriculture has estimated that China's production of pork, poultry, and beef will increase by approximately 30% by 2024.
"We therefore are confident that demand for the livestock feeds and feed ingredients we produce will continue to increase over the course of the next decade," Luciano added.
