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Background

Birth of the Group

To face the shift towards economic globalization, the cooperatives Arcis, Bazancourt, Corbeilles and Eclaron decided to unite their efforts into a single company. These founding cooperatives formed Cristal Union in January 2000 to better control, manage and adapt to the necessary changes in sugar and alcohol production. They pooled their personnel and their industrial and financial assets and optimized their industrial organization.

The restructuring of the alcohol and sugar businesses within Cristal Union began in 2001 in light of the economic challenges on the sluggish alcohol markets and economic and regulatory requirements in the sugar industry. In 2003, the political and economic outlook on the European alcohol market prompted Cristal Union to continue concentrating its alcohol businesses to preserve its competitiveness and the durability of the business sector. Cristal Union’s alcohol businesses were consolidated into two major distilleries in Arcis and in Bazancourt.

In addition to distilling and sugar production, Cristal Union had operations in beet pulp and lucerne dehydration at 3 sites: Bazancourt, Corbeilles and Eclaron. As the Eclaron site was not associated with a sugar refinery and had a low dehydration capacity, the pulp and lucerne dehydration business had accumulated a high deficit and lacked any favourable prospects on the market for dehydrated products. Cristal Union therefore decided to shut down the dehydration operations at the Eclaron site in August 2003.

Benefiting from continuous geographical coverage from east to south of the Paris basin, boasting a beet-growing region renowned as the best farmlands in Europe, Cristal Union sought to boost its sugar-pulp-alcohol production to reach a critical size close to that of the leading European groups. Cristal Union and SDHF (Sucreries Distilleries des Hauts de France) jointly negotiated the takeover of part of the sub-quota sugar production of Béghin-Say. This operation strengthened the market position of Sucre Union, making it a European-scale competitor on the sugar market. Furthermore, through its new subsidiary Cristal Union Développement, on 13 January 2003 Cristal Union took over the sugar refineries in Châlons and Sillery to organically reinforce the beet production and supply of its industrial facilities. Cristal Union also improved its capacity and sugar production in acquiring the Sermaize packaging unit through its subsidiary Sucre Union.

The Group’s industrial restructuring continued throughout the 2003-2004 financial year. Following the 2003 campaign, Cristal Union announced the permanent shutdown of the sugar refinery in Châlons. Operations at the Bray alcohol rectification and dehydration facility were closed in April 2004 and transferred to the Arcis site, resuming in March 2005.

At the General Meeting of Cristal Union on 24 January 2005, the merger of Cristal Union with Cristal Union Developpement was approved and applied retroactively as of 1 October 2004. On this date, the Sillery plant became a Cristal Union establishment.

 

Legal structure

The Group began the legal and administrative restructuring of the shareholder cooperatives of Cristal Union and Cristal Union Developpement, resulting in :

At the General Meetings of CCVB (Châlons) and CABMA (Sillery) on 11 and 12 January 2004, a merger of these two cooperatives was unanimously approved to form beet cooperative of Nord Champagne.

At the General Meetings of the Eclaron cooperative and SICA in Arcis-sur-Aube on 1 and 2 February 2004, a merger of these two cooperatives was unanimously approved to form cooperative of Sud Champagne.

Beet cooperative of Alsace joined Cristal Union on 26 January 2007.

On 10 March 2009, Cristal Union became a “single cooperative”. It was the end of a long, voluntary process to standardize the beet farming policies of the member cooperatives of the Union, which is now broken down in to 5 divisions:

  • Arcis sur Aube Section
  • Bazancourt Section
  • Corbeilles en Gâtinais Section
  • Erstein Section
  • Sillery Section

Consequences of the single cooperative for the Group include :

  • Pooling of rights and beet delivery references into a single plant (main plant of the section).
  • Improved alignment between the main plant and the delivery plant.
  • Convergence of beet farming practices.
  • Administrative and financial simplification.

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