Glanbia and Fyffes are jointly to invest $5 million (€5.2 million) in a new Internet trading portal for the global food ingredients industry, currently worth around $200 billion a year. The site is expected to be operational by the middle of the year.

The move by Fyffes to invest in Ingredientsnet.com follows the announcement last week from the group that it planned to use the expertise developed in the establishment of its own Worldof fruit.com portal for the fresh produce industry to develop similar Internet trading operations for other industries.

Glanbia will provide the industry knowledge for ingredients net.com, which a spokesman said was the first Internet portal set up for the food ingredients industry. He said the investment by Glanbia and Fyffes was on a 5050 basis and would be sufficient to complete the start-up phase.

The new portal's first year funding requirements would be a further $10 million and this would come from external investors, the spokesman added.

He said that the Internet portal would operate as a separate and discrete entity from Glanbia itself. This is seen as essential if it is to attract other major players in the ingredients industry to use the portal, which will include an Internet-based business-to-business exchange allowing users - mainly food and beverage manufacturers and their suppliers - to buy and sell dairy ingredients, flour, sugar, edible oil and fats.

But, while the announcement of Fyffes' worldoffruit.com portal last December had a galvanising effect on Fyffes shares, yesterday's joint announcement failed to have any impact in the market. Glanbia was unchanged at 85 cents while Fyffes was 15 cents lower on €2.40.