13th June 2006, VIENNA: UFA-Mischfutter AG to invest in a modernization of its existing animal feed manufacturing plant with Buhler food processing group supplying the heart of the renovation project.
The Buhler Technology Group has signed a contract worth several millions for a project in the immediate vicinity of its headquarters in Uzwil. UFA-Mischfutter AG is investing 20 millions of Swiss francs in its existing animal feed manufacturing plant.
The UFA company operates animal production plants at various sites in Switzerland. Its facility in St. Margrethen, which has been producing formulated feeds for cattle, pigs, and other livestock for the farmers in Eastern Switzerland since 1968, needs renovation. Its production technology is obsolete and inefficient, and the risk of production losses has become too high. In order to allow farmers in Eastern Switzerland to continue to supply their grain to a regional processor and to buy compound feeds at best terms, UFA is renewing its production systems, relying on the process technology and the know-how of the Buhler Technology Group in Uzwil.
The remodeled facility will resume service in the autumn of 2007 after increasing its production capacity from 47,000 metric tons to 80,000 tons annually. By implementing this necessary production expansion, UFA is reducing its production costs to EU levels. The benefi-ciaries will be the farmers in the region, other purchasers of formulated feeds, and ultimately also the consumers of meat products.
Buhler is supplying the heart of the renovated plant with a capital cost of 12 million Swiss francs. This includes all the equipment and process operations required for the production of compound feeds: the intake of several dozen types of raw material, storage, grinding, blending and mixing, and expansion. Buhler will also supply the entire control system including the electrical installations. This project will create one of Europe’s most advanced feed manufacturing plants, which will set the standard especially in terms of automation and hygiene. For Buhler, this largescale order is of farreaching significance.
On the one hand, it will be an important showcase facility for customers to tour, and on the other hand the new feed mill will intensify the partnership between Buhler and UFA. “This new formulated feed facility offers us the unique opportunity to test new processes and new products right on the doorstep,” says Luis Hernandez, head of the Feed Technology business unit of Bühler AG. The new facility is also of strategic significance to the UFA company, which will now have adequate capacities to process most of the grain crop of Eastern Switzerland within the region itself. Moreover, the production increase will enable it to reduce its prices as well as to expand to the neighboring countries of the EU. With the facility, important jobs will be secured in the region.
