Roquette: even more “intelligent” industrial starches
Reproduced courtesy of La papeterie
Roquette reorganizes its industrial starches products for the paper market.
As of December 2006, Roquette’s “Paper and Corrugated Board” activity belongs to the “Industrial Starches” Business Unit (BU), and this has resulted in a reorganisation of the range. An exclusive meeting with those in charge of this BU, who explain their strategy from A to Z.
By attaching its “Paper and Corrugated Board” activity to its “Industrial Starches” BU, Roquette has also reorganised its range and amended its strategy regarding the paper industry and corrugated board. In fact, explains Pascal Granseigne, the director of the “Industrial Starches” BU, « our entire range is henceforth structured around two big families: commodities (to which the native starches used for paper manufacture are attached) and specialties. » The Roquette group is made up of around 6,000 people. At the Lestrem site (Northern France), the headquarters and the biggest factory of the group, a team of 70 staff (sales people and technicians) is specifically dedicated to the paper and corrugated board sector.
PAPER AND CORRUGATED BOARD: NEARLY A QUARTER OF ROQUETTE’S TURNOVER AND A SECTOR IN WHICH INNOVATION NEVER ENDS
If food processing accounts for 40 % of Roquette’s total turnover, paper and corrugated board represents the second most important sector (23 %), followed by fermentation, chemistry & industry (14 %), pharmacy/cosmetology (13 %) and animal nutrition (10 %). The group is characterised by its ability to produce starch from four sources: maize, wheat, potato and pea, the last one being only recent. Roquette works for all the big world paper groups and for all types of paper and corrugated board, this sector demanding starches produced from GMO-free raw materials in Europe. These industrial starches are sold for very diverse paper applications (wet part, size press, coating, corrugated board and processing).
The objectives that guide the “Industrial Starches” BU are based on three axes, continues Pascal Granseigne: « energy savings, an alternative to petroleum and conventional chemistry and the reduction in the global consumption of starches, for our essential mission consists in helping paper manufacturers to optimise their processes while at the same time reducing their production costs. » All the ranges developed in recent years by Roquette show this unrelenting concern to satisfy these new demands. Régis Houzé, the Bio Polymers Project Leader within the “Industrial Starches” BU, recalls in particular the decision, taken a few years ago by Roquette, to develop the tissue market. This entailed above all the development of the bio-polymer range Vector, which can also be used as an ASA emulsion base to replace the cationic wet-end starch: «Overall, this range has enabled us to provide an additional solution for the market for improving paper properties with, for some applications, the possibility of doing away with the size press.»
« In the case of corrugated board (heavy, double or triple groove), with Vector N 735, the productivity gains can attain 20 to 30 % on account of the improved reaction of the product to the glue joint », explains Christian Bouxin, the Senior Market Development Technologist of the “Industrial Starches” BU. Over a period of 2 years, approximately 50 customers have adopted this new composition (including fifteen or so French board manufacturers). Another product: Vector® HMS (High Dry Substance) which replaces 50 % of the top layer of butadiene styrene latex for offset. The mechanical and printability properties of the paper (including mottling) are maintained and a rheology and a water retention suited to blade coating are obtained. Pea starch is already a big success, especially in corrugated board. Another avenue explored: the replacement of the coating latex with the Stabilys range.
Roquette has done a lot of work in this field, where the company was also little present during the 1990’s. At Atip Grenoble, Roquette will announce the launch of a new range Vector® HMS with even greater performances, both for the pre-coat and the top coat.
The starch producer is continuing its works on brilliance, printability and mottling, « with a new implementation technique which will enable the latex to be replaced without affecting the dry substances of the coating mixture », announces Christian Bouxin (*).
Energy savings and gains in productivity can also be obtained by working in the mass of the paper. «Generally speaking, in conjunction with the paper manufacturer, we define their priorities and needs and we determine an action plan, explains Pascal Granseigne. We carry out tests at the customer’s and we can also offer to carry out tests on our pilot machine. Finally, we submit the best possible technico-economical solution to the customer. We also emphasise the need to properly employ the raw material, which often involves a subtle balance. In so doing, we seek to teach paper makers how to save starch.»
BIOETHANOL AND PAPER-CORRUGATED BOARD: SECTORS THAT ARE TOTALLY COMPATIBLE
As of 1 January 2008, Roquette will produce bioethanol from wheat at its Beinheim site, which is in the process of being reconverted. For all that, Pascal Granseigne intends to cut short certain questions: « To be sure, Roquette is interested in ethanol and obviously cannot be absent from this market, but if we are investing in this sector, it is not at all to the detriment of paper. In our business, the paper market is just as attractive as ever and represents very large volumes. »
Questioned about the explosion in starch prices that the paper and board manufacturers are having such difficulty passing on to their finished products, Pascal Granseigne recalls that this situation is linked to the tensions throughout the world regarding the prices of cereal raw materials. On the one hand, the demand for wheat from some big emerging countries such as India or China exceeds the supply, which results mechanically in a rise in prices. On the other hand, the American and European policy to favorising the development of the production of ethanol is also tending to limit supply.
Lastly, the potato harvest last year was particularly bad, and this led to a rise in wheat prices, which has also recorded a poor harvest this year.
All these factors explain that the price of starch has significantly increased over the last few months, and this trend is certainly far from over.
AN ON-GOING STRATEGY OF R&D AND GROWTH
Set up in 1951, the Lestrem R&D centre employs approximately 385 people, invests some 40 M€, and files 15 to 20 patents every year. It is the biggest centre in the group, almost all the factories having their own application research centre. « We base our long-term growth on innovation. Our new products are designed to broaden and enrich our range by exploiting all the functional wealth of starch », emphasises the director of the “Industrial Starches” BU. The Lestrem site is ISO 9001 certified, and its environmental policy implements the ISO 14001 procedure.
In April 2006 the Industrial Innovation Agency (AII) decided to support six programmes. One of them, christened BioHub™, was presented by Roquette. It aims to develop an alternative chemistry to petroleum (bioplastics) using renewable raw materials (maize or wheat). This programme could eventually lead to the construction of integrated biorefineries. In this context,
Roquette would therefore work to restrict the use of fossil fuels, reduce the production of greenhouse gases and support agriculture. Over the next ten years this BioHub™ programme will enable 1.3 MT of cereals grown on 160,000 hectares to be used. In addition, in its competitiveness centres, Roquette has joined forces with regional partners, industrialists and research and training laboratories (private and university facilities) to undertake joint work. It is on this basis therefore that the company is working notably in partnership with Cascades and Sical (Rossmann group) on the “Matbar” project (Barrier materials).
To develop in the emerging countries (China, India and very shortly, Russia), Roquette is investing locally in line with the changing needs of these regions. The initial approach is often made via agents.
Thanks to its presence on the big consumer markets and its practice of benchmarking, Roquette has a great capacity for observation and reaction to developments in countries, cultures or modes of consumption. A vision, both international and targeted, that in no way prevents it from continuing to assert loud and clear its ferocious determination to remain a totally family group.
Valerie Lechiffre
(*) Technical information about the VECTOR® and STABILY® ranges and their applications has appeared in the April-May 2007 issue of “La Papeterie”, No 282, pp. 53/55.
La Papeterie, Oct. 2007, No. 285, p.58-62
