Our markets
What are ARD's areas of expertise?
Creating value from biomass, and more generally the sustainable exploitation of bioresources, is now one of the concrete and viable solutions to environmental challenges. With many years' experience in the industrial processing of plant resources, ARD puts its industrial biotechnology expertise and skills to work for sustainable agriculture and any organisation committed to looking for innovative alternative solutions.
Creating value from biomass
Transforming agricultural resources has been central to ARD's business since its creation in 1989. A major player in industrial biotechnology, green chemistry, and biorefining, ARD has successfully developed and scaled up production of many products internally, with the creation of subsidiaries – like Soliance, which produces new cosmetic ingredients, and Wheatoléo, which produces detergents – as well as with third parties, by providing its tools and its expertise to companies and start-ups looking to replace fossil-based ingredients (or products) with bio-based ingredients.
Thanks to innovative plant production and processing systems and its bio-refining experts, ARD is constantly developing new products for the food industry, cosmetics, or plant health products.
Bioinputs: towards sustainable agriculture
Consumers are increasingly demanding about the quality of the products they buy. Confronted with this double demand and environmental challenges, many farmers are choosing to grow differently, by significantly reducing their chemical fertiliser and pesticide use and choosing products that are more environmentally friendly and healthier for the consumer. 100%-natural bio-inputs (bio-pesticides, bio-stimulants, and bio-fertilisers) will soon meet their needs. Thanks to its expertise in biotechnologies and commitment to sustainable agriculture, ARD has joined forces with Elephant Vert to create NILE. The aim of this company is to accelerate scale up, time to market, and the democratisation of bio-inputs by everyone in the food chain.
Industrial biotechnologies: a market with strong potential
Farmers, manufacturers, and consumers… By scaling up new processes for its customers, ARD is creating value from biomass and agricultural by-products, thus opening the door to new markets in the food industry, cosmetics, fine chemicals, and even the petrochemical industry. Some biopolymers (polymers made from biomass) are now used, in part or in full, to make "plant-based plastics" and certain types of rubber, which can replace plastics made from petrochemicals.
A renowned player in the biotechnology industry, ARD is a specialist in fine chemicals. Its completely modular, cutting-edge equipment enables it to meet the needs of certain sectors with extremely stringent hygiene and safety standards (cosmetics, hygiene, etc.) and develop high-added-value molecules in small quantities.
Each one of these industrial innovations is the fruit of several years' research and high-level chemical and biotechnological expertise, and is the illustration of ARD's commitment to a decarbonated world.
Regional presence and environmental commitments
ARD is based in the Pomacle-Bazancourt biorefinery platform, near Reims (France). This proximity to other local players in the bioeconomy allows ARD to optimise processes and develop synergies while limiting its environmental footprint. ARD's business is organised by activity: atmospheric impact (air and water quality), biodegradability, eco-toxicity and waste processing. ARD is aware that a sector's ecological impact it is also a key lever of sustainable development and therefore offers manufacturers and start-ups who so wish the services of its environmental team.
