Portrait
French cereal production is used in animal feed (57%), human nutrition (25%) and starch production (18%). The bulk of national cereal production is focused on four species: wheat, corn, barley and durum wheat. Tereos processes the cereals grown by, among others, its cereal co-operatives partners in its industrial facilities, producing mainly starch and alcohol. Tereos also acts as a cereals trader, via its Hubau subsidiary which stores 600,000 tonnes of cereals in Picardy.
Products
Starch: grain is cleaned and crushed, and the flour produced is then mixed with water. The starch milks produced are then transferred to glucose plants for further processing, dried to produce natural starch or processed to make modified starches. These are used in the food industry and in manufacturing.
Glucose and its derivatives: glucose plants transform starch milks into glucose syrups which are then purified and concentrated. Specific blends can be produced to meet each client's needs.
Alcohols: when fermented in the presence of yeast, glucose is transformed into alcohol. The product is then distilled to produce highly pure alcohol or rectified and dehydrated to produce pure alcohol.
Bioethanol: dehydrated alcohol, or bioethanol, is used as fuel. It can be used as a blend with petrol in different proportions (E10, E85, etc.).
Other outlets: starch processing produces a number of co-products: wheat and corn gluten, corn feed, wheat feed, cereal germs, hydrolysed proteins, etc. All these can be used in human and animal food.
