The court heard and considered the 15 different takeover bids of Doux as well as the proposed continuation of the activities of the company from its current CEO, Charles Doux, under the control of British bank Barclays.

According to a report in Le Figaro, two of the bids stand out.

The first is from the consortium Sofiprotéol - a financial institution within the sector with interests in vegetable oil, protein and poultry including the companies: Glon Sanders (subsidiary of Sofiprotéol), Duc, LDC, Terrena, Tilly-Sabco and Triskalia.

Some of these companies have also made individual offers.

The second option has been presented by the current CEO, Charles Doux, who proposes to continue the observation period before submitting a comprehensive plan to revive the group in October.

In this plan, the British banking group Barclays would become the majority shareholder. Until now the Doux family has held 80 per cent of the shares.

The cost of this plan, in terms of job losses, has not yet been worked out and the unions were still waiting on Friday for a written submission of the plan, the Figaro report says.