CJ Cheil Jedang Aims for Methionine Market Worth 5 Trillion Won

CJ Cheil Jedang has started producing L-methionine in its plant. Earlier, the company and France-based Arkema jointly invested US$400 million (437.4 billion won) in the construction of a plant in Malaysia, which can produce 80,000 tons of L-methionine per year.

The company announced that it is meaningful to produce methionine by an environmentally-friendly bio-fermentation process using raw sugar and grape sugar as raw materials. It discovered this process after 8 years of research and development.

L-methionine, which was developed by CJ Cheil Jedang, was already recognized for its superiority by the most prestigious academy in the livestock industry. So, the production of 80,000 tons per year will change the world’s methionine market landscape, which is currently dominated by by petroleum-based DL-methionine.

Methionine, which has a global market size of US$5 billion (5.47 trillion won), makes up the biggest part of the total essential amino acid market for animal feed, along with lysine, which has a market size of US$4 billion (4.37 trillion won).

An official from the company said, “There is a high entry barrier to develop chemical process technology, not to mention environmentally-friendly bio-fermentation process. So, this is a high-value-added business, which other companies could never dream of advancing into the market, except only few leading companies that already dominated the market.”

Currently, only 4 companies – Evonik in Germany, Adisseo in China, Novus in the U.S., and Sumitomo in Japan – monopolize the market, accounting for more than 95 percent of the market share.

Kim Chul-ha, CEO of CJ Cheil Jedang, said, “In order to broaden our boundaries in the global green biotechnology business we will position ourselves as the leading player in the methionine market, which has high profitability and marketability.”

Meanwhile, the plant producing L-methionine is located in th =e coastal city of Kerteh, Malaysia. Therefore, it is regarded as the best location to target China and other Asian countries, where the demand of methionine is rapidly rising.