Interview with our Procurement Manager

Duynie has a large assortment of natural petfood ingredients. But how are these ingredients sourced? Meet our Procurement Manager Sanne Verduyn. She is responsible for the procurement of all co-products, which are processed into natural petfood ingredients. Apart from buying existing co-products, she also looks into possibilities to extend the product portfolio with new co-products. This way she makes sure that Duynie always offers the best and cats and other pets.

A common goal of sustainable petfood ingredients 

Sanne has been working at Duynie since 2019. Before that she already had several years of experience in the food industry. Duynie is part of Duynie Group, Europe’s largest company active in the valorization of co-products released in the food, beverage and biofuel industry. With more than fifty years of experience in processing co-products into new products and applications, Duynie Group creates value for suppliers. Sanne: “Because we are part of a large company, I work with a lot of different departments. This makes the job dynamic. Furthermore, Duynie Group is an ambitious company and the people that work here all share the same goal.” And that goal is, of course, to maximize the value of sidestream products and create sustainable and plant-based petfood ingredients of the highest quality.

Maximizing the value of co-products

Sanne buys various natural co-products, from carrots and chicory to potatoes. Duynie maximizes the value of co-products and simultaneously takes care of suppliers’ side streams, turning waste into new products and improve environmental performance. This sustainable approach extends to Duynie own factory, as well as the external drying companies that the company closely works together with. Wet co-products are dried with residual heat; a climate-neutral production process. This results in petfood ingredients with a lower carbon footprint than alternatives and a green image. This actively contributes to suppliers’ own sustainability goals as well as their clients. In turn it also helps customers meet their sustainability goals of more sustainable petfood consumption. As a Procurement Manager, Sanne plays an important role to create a win win for everyone. 

A team effort to create the best petfood ingredients

No day is the same as a Procurement Manager. Sanne works with a lot of different teams within Duynie Group. Together with Production and the Quality department she ensures that the co-products are made into high-quality petfood ingredients and that this quality is maintained. She checks with Sales which co-products are a good choice to procure. And last but not least she closely works with Duynie own nutritionist. Sanne consults him to see if potential co-products are suitable for petfood. Of course, she also deals a lot with people on the supply side. Sanne: “It’s great to work with suppliers and see what can be improved in the way they deal with their sidestream products.” This makes Duynie’s unique concept of using co-products for petfood ingredients a win-win situation for all parties involved.