Its founder’s intuition was that of seeing in hide collagen a resource to be used to obtain nitrogen organic fertilisers. It is one of the longest-lived firms in the industry and its long history proves that ILSA has always been able to stay in the market with its products and meet through innovation the needs of an increasingly demanding and specialised agriculture.
Thanks to the acquisition of Ico S.p.A. and Valcoa S.p.A., it consolidates its leadership among the Italian makers of organic fertilizers. In this same period it markets the first product with its own trademark, FERTORGANICO, still in production today.
The first partnership is forged with the Faculty of Agronomics of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Piacenza, which lays the groundwork for the entire subsequent evolution of the ILSA research. Over the time new partnerships have been forged with a lot of universities and research institutes in Italy and abroad, promoting the constant improvement of production processes and the creation of new highly effective products.
Being closer to the raw material from which AGROGEL® and GELAMIN®, the hydrolysed gelatins - one solid and the other fluid - for agricultural use, are obtained, means greater production capacity, greater chance of selecting the raw material itself, more efficient logistics and lesser environmental impact from transport.
The plant for the production of liquid fertilisers marks in fact the company’s entry in this market and in the biotechnology sector. It confirms the company’s vocation to innovation, quality and care for the environment. This plant gives birth to GELAMIN®, the fluid gelatin for agricultural use from enzymatic hydrolysis, and the plant-derived products for plant biostimulation from the VIRIDEM® programme.
The production plant located in Molfetta, in the province of Bari, is the path chosen by the company to better serve the whole area of Southern Italy and meet the growing demand for its products coming from the countries of the Mediterranean basin.
The corporate development has always gone hand in hand with a strong sense of social responsibility; environmental protection, safety at work, product safety and transparency to the outside have always been considered as corporate priorities.
35+ years of close partnerships with the most important research institutes result in the creation of the C.R.A., Corporate Research Centre, provided with growth chambers and the most modern equipment, which confirm the company’s attitude towards product and process innovation.
Thanks to AGROGEL®, 16 March 2007 will always remain an important date in the history of ILSA: the hydrolysed gelatin for agricultural use is introduced in the law ruling the use of fertilisers in Italy.
In the Rio Grande Do Sul state, in an area with a strong agricultural vocation, the new plant of the subsidiary ILSA BRAZIL has been started to meet the growing demand for products based on AGROGEL® and GELAMIN®.
After seven years of research, following legal recognition and introduction of the Fabaceae hydrolysate in the category of products with a specific action on plants, the company presents to the market its first plant-derived biostimulant, ILSAC-ON, quickly followed by ILSASTIM+ and ILSAVIS+.
The ultimate frontier of the ILSA research generates a renewed corporate vision that is increasingly green and sustainable. With the launch of the new trademark, the new philosophy «the green evolution» is introduced: a prelude to the output of a new revolutionary range of products projecting the company into the future.
It is a clean process that allows extracting bioactive substances without using organic solvents and involves no heat stress. Because of its very low environmental impact, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration - U.S.) has conferred the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) attribute to it. The combination between this new technology and the enzymatic hydrolysis technology has allowed the company to launch the VIRIDEM® programme, a guide to make plant-derived natural biostimulants that are efficient and can act on plant metabolism. A programme that can be summed up in a clear philosophy: «From plants for plants»
The most important industrial and commercial Group at a world level in the bio-stimulant sector was established. The Group also includes the Italian company - CIFO, the Canadian company - West Coast Marine Bio Processing, producer of seaweed extracts and the Hungarian company - Matècsa, producer of peats and derivatives.
Thanks to the new production plant, located just a few kilometers away from ILSA BRAZIL’s one, operational since 2009, the production capacity of the company in Brazil reaches 52.000 tons. The whole production made by ILSA Rio Grande do Sul is currently intended for to the Central and South America markets.
ILSA has developed new technologies in a micro version that are capable of solving the environmental problem of trimmings and scraps of tanned leathers. The company is implementing these innovations in various countries around the world. It is a technological innovation that allows for the improvement of the wastes of the tanning production chain that makes use of by-products from the food industry.
Until a few years ago, it used to be an industrial process that was only possible in large tanning districts. Today, thanks to the GAP programme (Global Aminoacids Production), the thermobaric hydrolysis process for the production of solid fertilizers is also possible even in small tanning clusters.
Biolchim, Cifo, ILSA, Matèsca and West Coast Marine has joined Huber Engineered Materials, becoming together with Miller Chemical and Fertilizers a key part of the business unit HUBER AGROSOLUTIONS.
