Thai Union Ingredients has begun operations at its new state-of-the-art facility designed to explore more efficient and specialised methods for refining Omega-3 oils.
The Omega-3 Centre of Excellence (O3C) comprises 225 sqm of laboratories and research space and is located at the company’s crude fish oil facility in Samut Sakhon, Thailand. It is now officially open to all interested companies for collaboration and research on Omega-3 oils.
“Our Omega-3 Centre of Excellence is the next step on our journey to ensuring TUI delivers the healthiest and highest quality ingredients to our customers,” said Leonardus Coolen, managing director of TUI.
“It is particularly exciting for potential customers as it allows us to optimise the final point of our end-to-end supply chain at our Rostock plant [in Germany] to deliver the highest quality Omega-3 oils to customers both in Europe and around the world.
“In the very near future, we will install pilot scale facilities that resemble our facilities in Rostock even better to help validate the process from lab scale to commercial scale.”
O3C has played a central role in optimising the refinery process for UniQ DHA, TUI’s tuna oil product and is now widening its scope to cover other Omega-3 oils including fish oil and algal oil.
The processes undertaken at O3C include sourcing materials, refining the oils using the latest technological developments and delivering the finished product. Once the process is complete, the materials are transferred to Rostock where they are tested at a larger scale before being shipped to customers around the world.
