Business news weekly roundup

PAI Partners, a European private equity firm, is the new owner of ingredients giant Chr. Hansen. Chr. Hansen will continue its operation in its present form, and headquarters will remain in Denmark. Cargill has acquired Integrated Bakery Resources, a provider of premix systems, finished foods, and related marketing services to North American-based bakers and retailers. The acquisition, which includes Breadsong Baking Company, is designed to strengthen Cargill's delivery of solutions to bakery customers. Mars has announced the launch of a new business unit, called Mars Nutrition for Health & Well-Being, which will develop and launch new foods, snacks and beverages targeted at the lucrative nutritional foods market. The company has been working on research over the last fifteen years in partnership with universities into the health benefits of cocoa and the cocoa flavanols that provide the essence of those benefits. ED&F Man, a leading cocoa, sugar, and coffee supplier, has formed Corigins, a new US-based supplier of traceable ingredients to the rapidly expanding organic and natural foods sector. Corigins will have access to ED&F Man's global network of 4,000 employees in 90 countries, and will provide food manufacturers with ingredients such as certified organic sugar from Costa Rica, Fair Trade and organic cocoa from Ecuador, and natural and organic sugars from around the world. The company claims that Corigins will also support natural foods customers with proprietary blending and formulation services that, until now, have been offered only to mainstream foods manufacturers. Israel Chemicals a specialty chemical company, has announced that ICL Performance Products, one of its four operating segments, has agreed to acquire the assets of Adicon Industria E Comercio De Aditivos Ltda, a privately-owned Brazilian manufacturer and supplier of functional food additives for the meat industry. The deal is being carried out through ICL Performance Products' business unit Food, a producer and distributor of food additives, which plans to merge Adicon with another of its companies that is active in the Brazilian food additive market. Galaxy Nutritional Foods, a producer and marketer of health-promoting, nutritious plant-based dairy alternatives, is set to sell substantially all of its plant assets to Schreiber Foods. The transaction, which will be subject to approval from the Company's primary lenders and shareholders, is expected to close on or about November 1, 2005. Dot Foods has announced its intention to acquire the foodservice business of Chicago Sweeteners (CSI), a Chicago-based foodservice redistributor and distributor of ingredients to food manufacturers. The acquisition includes Chicago Sweeteners' foodservice inventories and customer list,which is concentrated in the Chicago area and extends throughout the Midwest and Southeast into Florida. "This acquisition improves our position as the preferred supply source for small tomedium-sized foodservice distributors," said Dot Foods CEO Pat Tracy. "We intend to complete the transaction within the next 60days."