Waste2Func, a European BBI-JU funded project, has been granted €6.7 million to build a technology platform. This will collect food waste from agriculture, food manufacturing, supermarkets, auctions and restaurants, and convert it via fermentation and purification into lactic acid and biosurfactants with applications in cosmetics, personal care and household care products. The project began in June 2021 and will end in November 2024, with a total budget of €13.965 million.

Brenntag has entered the Israeli market by acquiring distributor Y.S. Ashkenazi Agencies and its subsidiary Biochem Trading. The firm is the said to be the national market leader in personal care, and food and nutrition as well as one of the largest speciality chemical distributors. Terms were not disclosed and the deal has already been completed.

Friendly Chemical (FCC), a UK producer of eco-friendly cleaning and personal care products, has moved to a new 930 m² production facility in Skipton, North Yorkshire. This, the company said, is the result of rapidly rising demand from major retailers, including Booths, Holland & Barratt and The Vegan Kind.

The US-based Green Chemistry division of the Minafin Group has formed a strategic partnership with Origin Materials of West Sacramento in California to industrialise speciality products based on Origin’s biobased, carbon-negative materials in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, cosmetics and personal care, and automotive industries. No further terms were disclosed.

Croda has agreed to sell most of its Performance Technologies & Industrial Chemicals (PTIC) business to Cargill Velocity Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cargill in a €915 million deal should close in the summer of 2022, subject to regulatory approvals and consultation with employee representatives. The company had stated its intention to reviewing ownership options for PTIC in May 2021.

2M Group operation Surfachem has officially opened its new formulation laboratory within the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre within the University of Huddersfield, UK, where it has been active since 2014. Mottie Kessler, CEO and chairman of 2M, was among those present to showcase formulation demonstrations within the personal care and home care laboratories

Libra Speciality Chemicals of Irlam, UK, which makes and blends active ingredients for home and personal care, has invested £3.5 million in a new plant to manufacture the new low-salt betaines it has developed. This will also increases the site’s total betaine capacity by around two thirds and double the firm’s size.