The Netherlands-based Van Aarsen has closed on the largest order in the company's 63-year history, to supply, build and start up a 90-tons-per-hour feed mill for Sweden-based Kalmar Lantmän.
The mill, a €45 million investment, will increase Kalmar Lantmän's animal feed production to 270,000 tons per year. The company hopes to lower production, labor and energy costs with the replacement of its two existing feed mills.
“This order has fallen perfectly into place in our expanding organization, notwithstanding that an order of this format will obviously pose a great challenge,” said Guus Heijnen, Van Aarsen sales director. Efficiency, quality, lower production costs, legislation, food safety and ever-rising energy costs led to conscious decisions having to be made in the design phase of machines and projects. Recent activities for compound feed companies and co-operations have comprised mainly mergers and replacements and resulted in little new construction in The Netherlands. The home market, Western Europe, is very important to Van Aarsen for the initiation of market demands. “We were ready for a large project in the vicinity that will offer us a marvelous opportunity for a new reference project that can demonstrate fully all the requirements of a twenty-first century feed mill,” said Heijnen.
Construction of the new plant will begin in the spring.
