Nufarm paves way to fast moving consumer goods market through new strategic partnership with Unilever

Nufarm announces a strategic partnership with Unilever, one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, to promote the technical project development and future downstream commercialization of biomass oil in the fast-moving commercial goods market.

Further to the recent announcement on the establishment of a strategic R&D consortium to advance biomass oil technology, this multi-year agreement with Unilever, builds on the established scientific knowledge that specific oils can be generated in plants. The partnership aims to develop this technology into a scalable and commercial outcome and will leverage advanced biotechnology to further develop energy cane, a type of optimized high biomass sugar cane, and forage sorghum to produce valuable biomass oil with the aim of significantly reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Nufarm has previously developed and commercialised a variety of sugar cane called energy cane, a sustainable crop which generates significantly more plant matter and sugar than traditional sugar cane. Using recent breakthroughs in biotechnology, this project aims to build on and cultivate a commercially viable variety of energy cane that can also produce biomass oil. This technology will help reduce the reliance on petrochemical-based ingredients and is the first time energy cane or forage sorghum have been optimised to produce oil which will be used as an ingredient in consumer goods products.

″This technology and associated know-how further enhance Nufarm’s novel, sustainable and scalable oils strategy in high biomass crops like energy cane and forage sorghum and provides new transformational oils platform potential,″ says Greg Hunt, Nufarm CEO. ″The ag industry has both the challenge and opportunity of the century. Together, with key downstream partners like Unilever, we are entering new markets not traditionally served by agriculture.″

Neil Parry, Head of Biotechnology at Unilever says, ″By continuing to invest in biotechnology, we aim to further unlock the power of nature and build a more sustainable and diverse supply chain for the future. The partnership with Nufarm enables us to identify alternative ingredients for our household, beauty and personal care brands which will further support our ambition to reach net zero emissions across our value chain by 2039.″

In its current form, energy cane already has sustainability benefits such as climate stress tolerance, drought resistance, more efficient protection of soil against erosion and harvesting benefits for farmers and the environment. The project aims to replicate and build upon these traits in the new crop, to support Unilever’s climate ambitions. As well as being more robust, the aim is for no part of the crop to go to waste. In addition to biomass oil, the crop will also continue to produce sugar, which could be used in other biotechnology processes to generate speciality ingredients such as fragrances, enzymes, and cleaning ingredients used across Unilever’s portfolio. Other uses of the crop could include using the remaining plant fibre for paper and board in packaging as well as for renewable energy production.