Sugar and starches company AGRANA has opened a new wheat starch processing plant at its site in Pischelsdorf, Lower Austria. The capital investment involved amounted to around €70 million. The new facility represents an expansion of the current range of starch-based products at the site to include wheat starch in addition to the existing corn and potato starch ranges. The construction of the facility alongside the existing bioethanol plant is, said the company, a key step in the direction of resource efficiency, i.e. 100% utilisation of raw materials.
The wheat starch facility will process around 250,000 tonnes of wheat annually to produce 105,000 tonnes of wheat starch and 23,500 tonnes of wheat gluten in addition to 55,000 tonnes of wheat bran. Wheat starch is used, on the one hand, in a variety of mainly technical applications (such as in the paper industry) and, on the other, in the food industry, for example in the production of noodles, bread and other bakery products. Wheat gluten is used in the baking industry to refine flour and in the manufacture of pet food products as well as in fish food. Wheat bran is used as animal feed.
The close integration of the wheat starch plant and the existing bioethanol factory will enable the cereals processed to be utilised 100%, according to AGRANA. The raw material components left over from the manufacture of wheat starch and gluten will be used in the production of bioethanol as well as for the production of the premium-grade, GM-free, protein-rich animal feed marketed as ActiProt.
Taking into account the high-purity CO2 which is extracted from the fermentation tanks of the bioethanol plant by the industrial gas company Air Liquide, this makes a total of four top-quality products which are manufactured from a single commodity, the company notes.
"AGRANA's aim is to maximise the efficient use of commodities by means of the optimal tapping of synergies at its production sites,” said Johann Marihart, CEO of AGRANA. “This closed-cycle form of commercial operations means that we are a major step closer to achieving this objective as a result of the wheat starch production in Pischelsdorf."
