Oligopoly brief: Bunge
Bermuda-headquartered Bunge limited is the largest processors of oilseeds in the world and has a major presence in processing and selling a variety of agricultural products as well as manufacturing nutritional ingredients. The company can trace its origins back to 1818 in the Netherlands, where it was a grain merchant. While its main competitors, Cargill and Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) are better known, Bunge is a major player with a quieter approach.
Bunge is one of the leading processors of soybeans, rapeseeds, sunflower seeds, and canola. It also has significant regional involvement with wheat, corn, and sorghum.
The firm owns over 275 grain elevators, over 50 seed milling factories across the world. In the US, it is a major provider of shortenings and oils to food service companies. In Europe and Brazil it is involved in selling consumer brands for oil and shortenings.
Bunge is the largest corn dry miller in the world, making corn grits, flour, bran and meal, for customers like brewers, snack food, and breakfast cereal companies. It also makes hominy feed, sued in livestock husbandry.
In South America, the company is a major provider of wheat flour, It is the South America #1 originator and processor of soy in all forms, and it is the #1 seller of fertilizer. It recently entered the ethanol market by buying in 2007 the Agroindustrial Santa Juliana sugar mill, its first buy in that industry.
The company went publish in 2001: before that it was a family business. Since 2003, Bunge has owned a share of joint venture with DuPont Chemicals called Solae, which makes soy-based nutritional products including soy powders, soy flour, soy lecithin, and soy fibers. These products are used by food processing companies as supplements and thickening agents for consumer food products. They also processor soy polymers used in the paper and cardboard industries.
In 2003, Bunge also bought control of rival French company Cereol to become the #1 oilseed processor from, Italian energy company Edison. Bunge immediately sold of its French consumer-products cooking oil company Lesieur to a joint venture between it and French-based Sofiprotéoll, another oilseed and protein processor. The two companies also gave a joint venture in the manufacture of biodiesel, of which the company is a leading provider in the EU.
The company has been expanding rapidly in new markets, India, China, and South America. Especially in oilseeds and soy crushing it is a major world power. It is spreading in terms of geography and product mix, and stands high among the dozen firms that now control much of the world's agricultural wealth.
