<p>Duynie Group, with more than 50 years of expertise in the valorisation of plant based co-products, has been nominated for the prestigious Koning Willem I Award for innovative entrepreneurship in the category of Large Business (more than 250 employees). This prize is awarded biannually to Dutch companies that have demonstrated boldness, decisiveness, sustainability, perseverance and solid entrepreneurship over the past years.</p>

Duynie Group nominated for Koning Willem I Award

<h3>Surprised and honoured by the nomination</h3>
<p>The world is currently caught up in an effort to combat the spread of COVID-19. The Duynie Group team is doing what it can to preserve the continuity of business operations while prioritising the health of employees and partners. “In a period that is so dominated by coronavirus, our nomination for the Koning Willem I Prize has caught us by surprise,” says Richard Corsmit, CEO Duynie Group. “For our company, it is an independent third-party recognition of the steps we have taken over the past fifty years to build a financially healthy company with a positive impact on the environment.”</p>
<p>Duynie Group, part of Royal Cosun, is the only company in Europe engaging in the large-scale ‘valorising’ of plant based co-products to produce food, animal feed, ingredients for pet feed, technical applications and raw materials for energy production. These co-products are what remains when converting crops such as grains, sugar beets and potatoes into food stuffs and bio fuels. Every year, Duynie Group processes 4.5 million tonnes of co-products into more than 200 applications. The company has branches in several European countries and a worldwide sales network.</p>
<h3>Innovative entrepreneurship</h3>
<p>At around the turn of the millennium, Duynie Group decided to engage more fully in innovation to produce and market new applications based on co-products. One example of a successful innovation is the processing of ‘sidestream starch’ (co-product of the chips and crisps industry) to create high-grade starch applications such as glues. Today, through its subsidiary company Novidon, Duynie Group is the world’s largest producer of wallpaper glue based on co-products. Innovative techniques are currently under development to make plant based proteins derived from co-products suitable for use in for example meat substitutes. Duynie Group consultants travel the world to advise producers of food stuffs and bio fuels on the best ways to turn vegetative co-products into profit. In this way, Duynie Group works with both customers and suppliers to deliver an important contribution to closing the recycling loops by making maximum use of crops and avoiding wastage.</p>
<h3>Koning Willem I Foundation</h3>
<p>Since 1958, the Koning Willem I Foundation has awarded the Koning Willem I Award in the categories of Large Business and SMB every two years. Starting in 2012, it also awards the Koning Willem I Plaquette for Sustainable Entrepreneurship. Through these awards, the Foundation aims to generate more awareness of positive developments in the Dutch economy and to stimulate innovative entrepreneurship.</p>
<p>Four Regional Selection Committees have chosen twelve nominees in the category of Large Business. An Advisory Committee will then select a top three per category and submit this advice to the board of the Koning Willem I Foundation. The Board choses the final winner, who will be announced later this year.</p>