PB Leiner :

As PB Leiner is part of the Tessenderlo group, a diversified Belgian group internationally active in several branches of the chemical industry; and at a lower level, from PB Gelatin, the gelatin branch of Tessenderlo, I will hence begin to introduce Tessenderlo and PB Gelatin, before to introduce PB Leiner and the Davenport facility where I worked.

a) Tessenderlo

Tessenderlo is a Belgian multinational company, specialized in the chemistry industry. It has over 115 branches in 22 countries. It has about 8300 employees and consolidated turnover totalled 2.078 million euros in 2004. The Tessenderlo Chimie NV is listed on Euronext Brussels and is part of Next 150, Next Prime, and BEL mid. Tessenderlo was owned by a French national holding called EMC (entreprise minière et chimique), but is now independent.

Tessenderlo has five main activities:
- Inorganic materials
- Fine chemicals
- Gelatin
- PVC
- Plastic converting

In a number of markets, Tessenderlo Group occupies a leading position. Thus, at the world level, the group is:
- The largest producer of glycine acid, liquid sulphur-containing fertilizers, sodium hydrosulphide and of different type of benzyl.
- The second largest supplier of phosphates of animal feed and potassium sulphate for specialized fertilizer
- The third largest manufacturer of high-quality gelatin

b) PB Gelatin

PB Gelatin is a sub division of Tessenderlo group, manufacturing gelatin. As it was said previously; it is the third gelatin producer in the world. The group produces 36 600 tons of gelatins per year. PB Gelatin has 5 plants.

PB Gelatin produces four types of gelatin:

- Regular gelatin (used in gummy bears and different food, pharmaceutical and photo applications).
- Cold soluble gelatin (same application, but the gelatin does not have to be cooked, since it forms a gel in a cold solution)
- Regular hydrolyzed gelatin (for protein bars, supplements for example)
- Cold soluble hydrolyzed gelatin

The gelatin concept and the different kind that exist will be explained later on the report.

c) PB Leiner

PB Leiner is the American part of PB Gelatin. It is a corporation. Previously Leiner Davis; the company has been bought in the nineties by Tessenderlo. It has still kept the Leiner's name, but in the future it will become PB Gelatin.

There are two locations of PB Leiner in the USA. One in Jericho, New York, where there are some sales offices, and the Davenport, Iowa place, where the plant and the head offices are. 8 people are working in New York State, whereas 127 people are located in Iowa. There are 80 persons responsible of the production and the maintenance, working at the plant part, and 47 persons in the office.

PB Leiner is producing only pork gelatin, most of the time from skin, but manufactures bones one too. The Davenport facility has a production capacity of 9600 metric tons per year. The plant is ISO approved.

My work at PB Leiner :

On a high competition market, PB Leiner wanted marketing tools to benchmark, and to survey the market trends. I thus establish a market report, and give effective strategic advices for next years, and information tools, to be up to date with the market.