The Avril group is the only candidate to take over the plant of the biochemist Metabolic Explorer in Amiens

A little more than two months after its request for placement in receivership, the Amiens factory of the biochemist Metabolic Explorer (MetEx) can begin to hope again. The agri-food group Avril submitted a takeover offer on Monday June 3, just before the expiration of the deadline set by the Paris commercial court. It will maintain 304 jobs, specifies Avril.

In addition to the Amiens site, which has 280 employees, the takeover offer includes “R&D (research and development) activities essential to its operation (including some located in Saint-Beauzire, Puy-de-Dôme), as well as commercial activities” in Paris, adds April in a press release. “This offer combines, alongside Avril, the investment fund Sociétés de Projets Industrielles (SPI), managed by Bpifrance on behalf of the State” and was built “thanks to the support of the Hauts-de-France region and Amiens Métropole”specifies the group.

“It’s the French industry team that wins” with “a large French group in the agri-food industry which is taking over a very beautiful factory”, welcomed Roland Lescure, the Minister for Industry. Present on Monday in front of the factory, the latter said he was now working on lifting around twenty suspensive conditions, which neither he nor Avril wished to detail. The final hearing of the Paris commercial court is scheduled for 1^er July, he said.

If it is then validated, the resumption of the factory by Avril must take place no later than the end of July, declared to Agence France-Presse Rudolph Hidalgo, deputy general director of MetEx, who is delighted with the progress “very positive”after believing for a time that no solution would be found.

Avril, known for its Lesieur and Puget oil brands but also present in agrofuels and livestock feed, claims to be carrying out an industrial project which “fully responds to the challenge of decarbonization and French and European sovereignty of animal production sectors”. The factory usually produces 100,000 tonnes of amino acids per year, essential for the muscle growth of livestock, mainly lysine. “Incorporating lysine into livestock feed makes it possible to reduce the use of imported soya in favor of local plant proteins (rapeseed, sunflower, etc.)”underlines the group.

Issue of the European campaign

For François Ruffin (LFI), deputy for the Somme, it is “a victory for employees and for Picardy, but also for France and for the planet”, the lysine produced by MetEx emitting, according to the unions, five times less carbon than Chinese lysine. The importance of this product had pushed several left-wing European list leaders – Manon Aubry for the “rebellious”, Marie Toussaint for Europe Ecologie-Les Verts and Léon Deffontaines for the Communist Party – to meet in front of the factory at the end of March .

All three then called for national measures against the rise in the price of sugar, which represents 50% of the production cost of lysine, and for European action against “dumping” practiced according to the group by its Chinese competitors, which led to the opening of an investigation by the European Commission. “Now what is needed is protectionism”believes François Ruffin. “Without protectionism, the factory will not be viable. »

Manon Aubry said on “others to come to relocate [la] production against free trade ».

Monday afternoon, the Paris commercial court studied a takeover offer providing for maintaining 10 jobs out of 46 at the other MetEx factory, in Carling (Moselle). His decision is expected on June 25. Which leaves, on a group scale, “around a hundred employees without a solution”recognizes Rudolph Hidalgo.

The Avril group, which achieved a turnover of 7.9 billion euros in 2023, is present in nineteen countries with nearly 7,500 employees. The farmer Arnaud Rousseau, who took the helm of the majority agricultural union FNSEA in 2023, chairs its board of directors.