Since 1990 De Smet Engineers & Contractors has been carving itself out a position as the agro-industrial integrator of choice, carrying out EPCM (Engineering, Procurement & Construction Management) services for agro-industry facilities ranging in value from 50 to 300 million euros.
“That is the core of our business,” says Frédéric Anthone, Chief Sales Officer for De Smet Engineers & Contractors. “We carry out the full range of activities from detailed engineering work to procurement, project management, construction management, and the commissioning of new plants. We are active in the agro-processing sectors around sugars, ethanol, vegetable oils, biofuels, as well as bio-based chemicals and alternative proteins.”
The company also builds facilities for processing fertilisers and other downstream phosphate applications.
“Our DNA comes out of our origin as an EPC company,” explains Dimitri de Suraÿ, CEO of De Smet Engineers & Contractors. “Our experience in the construction sector has led us to always include the site reality and the constructability in the design of the plants. We are therefore also positioned to take on broader liabilities compared to our competitors, such as guaranteeing CapEXes, timing, and execution. At the same time, we are designing and building processing factories and our process knowledge sets us apart from general contractors.”
From Farm to Plant with Integrated Cogeneration
Thanks to De Smet Engineers & Contractors’ position at every stage of the agro-industrial life cycle, the company has a unique perspective that allows it to see trends across the agri-food sector.
“Demand for plant-based proteins is rising, driven by concerns of animal welfare, environmental impact and consumers’ own health,” says Anthone. “Concerns about food security and resilience in the face of global challenges like climate change are affecting consumer choices. At the same time, there are cutting edge technologies available, such as precision fermentation that offer sustainable and efficient ways to produce specific proteins. It is a scalable solution that can meet global demand.”
The same skills that are seeing De Smet Engineers & Contractors become a leading contributor to food security are also useful in other sectors, particularly around bio-based technologies.
“We start from wood, from sawdust, from any kind of biomass,” says Raphaël Hannoir, Sales & Marketing Manager at De Smet Engineers & Contractors.
“One recent example is a project we have worked on in Germany for a plant that produces bio solvent. It starts with bio-ethanol derived from sugar beet.” The company is indeed participating in establishing a renewable Ethyl Acetate plant for CropEnergies AG, a member of the Südzucker Group.
De Smet Engineers and Contractors has also done work alongside the bio-recycling industries, and is even entering the circular economy by working on plants that can recycle plastic. That might seem like an odd fit for an agro industry-based company, but as Hannoir explains, the approach here is enzymatic, not mechanical nor chemical-based.
“We are working on recycling plastics, but it is not through chemical recycling but bio recycling,” he says. “The customer uses special enzymes to break down the polymers of plastics and through different operations they can recreate the original monomers and produce a virgin plastic.”
This plastic bio-recycling project is for Carbios (enzymatic recycling of PET).
Your Sustainability Partner
By working on projects like these, De Smet Engineers & Contractors helps its clients safeguard the environment, conserve energy and improve process efficiencies.
“Our sustainability mission is to concentrate on methods that have the biggest impact while focusing on creating value for stakeholders,” says de Suraÿ. “We are conducting business in a socially, economically and environmentally responsible manner, designing and implementing specific processes. Our expertise aligns with sustainability initiatives along four areas, energy-saving solutions, sustainable design, environmental compliance and collaboration for innovation.”
However, implementing projects at this scale and level of technological complexity requires an extensive skill pool. This is a challenge that de Suraÿ takes very seriously.
“This is a major challenge that we are facing alongside other companies in the sector,” de Suraÿ tells us. “Of course, we offer a salary package in line with the market offering, but we also work hard to create an environment that is attractive to new recruits. We give them responsibility in every position and with that the freedom to operate. We are a relatively horizontally organised company, which creates a pleasant atmosphere to work in and an environment where people can grow. We then offer them the necessary training as they develop in the company.”
De Smet Engineers & Contractors is an international operation, and de Suraÿ emphasises this as he talks about his team, particularly emphasising the importance of their colleagues in India.
“We rely on our Indian colleagues a great deal,” he says. “We have built on their training, bringing employees to Europe for additional courses on a regular basis. We find employees particularly appreciate that investment.”
Looking to the future, De Smet Engineers & Contractors has more challenges ahead. Hannoir points to the importance of building efficiency in the firm’s processes to enable it to compete with the base oil industries, however, he is optimistic.
“There is innovation in that field and we have been supporting customers from the study phase onwards, helping them scale up to the industrial phase,” he explains. “We start collaborating with customers from the first pilot projects in the lab.”
That innovation and collaboration is also visible in the protein sector, where the firm is not only working with businesses in that sector, but contributing to educating the public about the possibilities here.
“The more efficiently we design, the more attractive it will be because there is still a premium to be paid by customers on these proteins,” Anthone points out.
The challenges are real, but De Smet Engineers & Contractors are more than ready to take them on.
“We are in the growing market by choice,” de Suraÿ tells us. “We are in food-related products, and replacing oil and gas with bio-based molecules. These are growing segments, and our growth is linked to them as a well-balanced business.”
