Kersia Belgium is positioning itself as an international hub for food safety

A world leader in food safety and biosecurity, operating in 150 countries, Kersia has chosen Wallonia as the location for its centre of excellence and research and development.  The group received the Wallonia Foreign Investment Award 2026 for this major investment, which has enabled it to significantly improve its performance and strengthen its international position. Let’s take a closer look at a company driven by a simple yet essential ambition: to enable everyone to eat healthily whilst protecting the planet.

Food sovereignty and access to healthy food for all are major global challenges. “Creating a world where food is safe” is Kersia’s raison d’être, explains Marc Van Grasse, Chief Business Officer for the Benelux and Nordic regions, and Managing Director of the Kersia Group. “Our role is to ensure access to food of the same high quality everywhere in the world. It is work carried out behind the scenes that spans the entire agri-food chain, from farm to fork. Food preservation also plays an important role in preventing food waste.”

Marc Van Grasse, Chief Business Officer for the Benelux and Nordic regions, and Managing Director of the Kersia Group

Take mozzarella, for example. Kersia is involved from the disinfection of milking parlours where the milk is collected, through to the manufacturers of the milking robots, the cleaning of the lorries that transport the milk, the mozzarella production stages, and finally the restaurant where it will be used as a pizza topping. And this applies whether it’s a pizzeria in Brussels or in Morocco.

Indeed, Kersia also aims to reduce the environmental impact of the global food supply chain. The group puts this commitment to sustainability into practice by choosing to produce and source locally. These short supply chains also help to reduce transport costs.

As well as supplying them with a full range of hygiene and disinfection products, Kersia also supports stakeholders in the food supply chain, particularly in their environmental transitions, by providing technical expertise, hygiene protocols and training.

In 2026, Kersia permanently strengthened its presence in Wallonia with the opening of the Centre for Food Safety Excellence (CFSE), an international centre dedicated to innovation, expertise and training in food safety. “Located next to the Seneffe plant, it enables us to build on market needs to develop solutions that are tested directly on-site in our laboratory and then in the application hall, where the products are tested on industrial pilot-scale equipment,” explains Benoît Duculot, Director of Innovation and head of this centre of excellence. “This enables us, for example, to see how a lubricant performs in its intended application and to assess, for instance, the water consumption required to use the product. We consider all potential impacts across the value chain and carry out life cycle assessments (LCAs) of our products.”

Benoît Duculot, Director of Innovation – Kersia Belgium.

It begins with the selection of plant-based or biodegradable raw materials (which is all the more important given that many of Kersia’s industrial clients have their own wastewater treatment plants), through to product design,  delivery to the customer (mode of transport) and also how the customer will use the product (quantity of product, water, temperature, etc.), right through to the end of the product’s life (recovery, recycling and reuse), whilst striving as far as possible to ensure that a product can be used multiple times.  

These LCAs, carried out in Seneffe, are particularly comprehensive. They take up to 16 parameters into account. Several of these relate to biodiversity, particularly the acidity levels of products, which have a direct impact on ocean acidification and rising ocean temperatures.

As well as sustainability, Kersia also stands out on the international stage in terms of regulatory compliance, thanks to a genuinely proactive approach. “A third of our resources are devoted to regulatory matters. Our lawyers and regulatory experts enable us to anticipate regulatory changes, which have proliferated over the last 10 years,” continues Benoit Duculot. “This is an important point because the European standard is a guarantee of quality, and we are committed to upholding this standard everywhere, whilst adapting to the specific requirements of each country.”

Why Wallonia?

It was Wallonia’s approach to open innovation, combined with its industrial expertise, that attracted Kersia. “Interaction between research centres and universities is facilitated, and this enables us to work on collaborative projects, several of which are also funded by the Walloon Region,” explains Benoit Duculot.

“We work in particular with the University of Mons and the Materia Nova R&D centre, as well as the University of Liège and Cetic for everything relating to new technologies and digitalisation”, an applied IT research centre based in Charleroi. “AI thus enables us to capture a whole range of data that can be used to optimise the process”.

Kersia in figures

Kersia is the result of a collaboration between several key players in the hygiene sector. The group has made numerous targeted acquisitions, always within the agri-food and drinks sectors.

Since its creation in 2016, Kersia has experienced rapid growth, reaching €665 million in turnover and employing over 3,500 people worldwide.

Kersia has 30,000 customers (including food and drink manufacturers, as well as farms and professionals in the hospitality sector) across 150 countries, with 35 production sites in Europe and beyond.

The Seneffe site in Wallonia is now one of the cornerstones of this international ambition. With 92 employees and an annual production of 17,000 tonnes, it contributes to the Group’s global growth, whilst 76 per cent of the site’s turnover comes from exports.