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Chr. Hansen pays €73m for LGG

15 Sep 2016

To further strengthen its probiotics offering, the company said, Chr. Hansen has acquired LGG from Valio for €73 million.

To further strengthen its probiotics offering, the company said, Chr. Hansen has acquired LGG from Valio for €73 million.

Natural solutions that advance human health are in high demand and the expected growth for microbial solutions in this industry is 7-9%, Chr. Hansen said, and through the acquisition of the LGG business, the company is now further strengthening its microbial platform across all three categories.

Alongside its own BB-12 strain, Chr. Hansen claims the Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (protected under the trademark LGG) is the best documented probiotic strain in the world. It has been used in food and dietary supplements since 1990 and is said to have a proven beneficial effect on the gastrointestinal and immune system. It has been studied in more than 200 clinical studies and described in more than 800 scientific publications.

“One of the ambitions in our Nature’s No. 1 strategy is to expand our current business within microbial solutions for human health,” said Cees de Jong, CEO of Chr. Hansen. “The LGGstrain and our own probiotic strain BB-12 are the best documented probiotic strains in the world and the acquisition allows us to capture the full potential of the LGG brand across markets for dietary supplements and infant formula offerings, as well as pursuing new opportunities in dairy.”

“The markets for well documented probiotic strains are experiencing very strong growth in dietary supplements and drives an entire category in fermented milk products, such as yoghurt, kefir, etc.” said Lasse Nagell, Senior Vice President, Human Health, Chr. Hansen. “We believe that there are vast opportunities for the LGG brand considering Chr. Hansen’s wide geographic reach and deep technical knowledge.”

Chr. Hansen says it has been the largest producer of LGG products for human dietary and infant formula for more than 10 years. Apart from acquiring the full rights to the strain, Chr. Hansen also takes over a number of specialty strains already in production and a bacterial strain collection of around 3,200 strains.

The acquired business includes the LGG trademarks and strain and related customer agreements, a collection of 3,200 strains and a small production site in Tikkurila, Finland which currently produces the LGG strain and a number of specialty strains used in dairy production, etc.