Burcon Nutrascience Corp. expects that its new partnership with Archer Daniels Midland Co. could eventually result in their marriage.

Burcon earlier this month signed a licensing deal with Archer Daniels for the production, distribution and sale of its Clarisoy soy protein, which can go into juices, soft drinks and sports drinks.

Although the deal does not give ADM a right or option to buy Burcon, Johann Tergesen, Burcon’s chief operating officer, said he assumes ADM would want to take it over down the road.

“If I were the executives at ADM, what I would do is wait until I really knew how the product is selling,” Tergesen said on Tuesday at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit in Chicago. “They only would make a decision to buy us if it made economic sense for them to repatriate the royalty stream that they’re otherwise paying out.

“They obviously are going to be able to know better than anybody what the future potential of the product is because they’ll be the ones lining up orders … you could almost say they’re in an unfair position in the amount of information they’ll know.”

But Tergesen said ADM could also just buy the rights to Clarisoy instead of the whole company, which is based in Vancouver.

ADM said it does not comment on specific details of its various agreements or discuss or speculate about any company.

THE WORLD WOKE UP

Following the December announcement that Dutch group DSM planned to buy baby food ingredients maker Martek Biosciences for $1.1 billion, the world “woke up” to the potential of ingredients companies, said Tergesen.

“It’s woken up the investment bankers. I’ve received so many new, unsolicited inquiries from investment bankers” inviting Burcon to meet with potential investors to gauge their interest, he said.

Tergesen said he would meet with them, but only to raise awareness.

“We’re not for sale, as it were. That’s not of an interest to us, not currently anyway,” Tergesen said. “As a public company, you’re always trying to increase public awareness.”