DSM and National Starch

by: Nicolas Hardt

The last day of our trip before travelling home to Europe was also the busiest one. Early in the morning at 6am we left NYC to travel to Belvidere, NJ to visit DSM. The Dutch State Mines (DSM) were found over 100 years ago and used to be a Dutch government-owned coal mining company. In these days, the company is positioned differently with a strong focus on creating products and services in Life Science and Material Science. These products are typically found in the motor, food, and electronic industry. At the site of DSM nutrition, which we visited today, several vitamins and arachidonic acid (a polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid which can be found in breast milk) are produced for the food industry. These vitamins can e.g. be used as a food supplement. In several and sometimes deafening process steps, which allowed no conversation and caused us to wear earplugs, the vitamins are manufactured using chemicals, enzymes, and/or microorganisms. The site of DSM was also the only place we visited during our PhD trip which only had a production plant and no R&D going on. Finally, during our well organized stay at DSM Nutrition we were informed that the DSM list price of 100% of the recommended daily intake (RDI) of all vitamins is about 1.2 dollar cents. The next time you are thinking about buying any kind of vitamin supplements you might want to keep this in mind.

In the afternoon, after lunch, our very last visit led us to National Starch in Bridgewater, NJ a subsidiary of AkzoNobel. National Starch is the global market leader in the development manufacturing and sales of speciality starches, employing over 2,250 people in 36 countries. National Starch mainly focuses on food ingredients (e.g. for McDonalds, Kraft, Aldi), papermaking, and biomaterial, such as biodegradable plastics. After a nice welcome presentation we had the chance to see a site pilot plant and different laboratories where the focus is set on research on starch. Afterwards, Elsbeth, Jimmy, Anja, and Abid were giving their last presentations before we were heading back to NYC.

In the evening, we concluded our very extensive and interesting, but also very exhausting PhD trip with a final little get-together at the hostel.

Finally, I want to say thank you to the PhD committee consisting of Anja, Elsbeth, Francisco, and Maurice. Thanks for the great organisation!