World Grain - November 2009 - 54

FEATURE: A DOMINANT FORCE IN EUROPEAN MILLING

Hungary began operating in April 2005
with a production capacity of 300 tonnes
per day and underwent an expansion in
2008 in which capacity was increased to
450 tonnes per day. Cost of the new construction and eventual expansion of the
five-story, 3,000-square-meter facility
was €11 million, Kempkes said.
Through Pannonmill and its other
investments, LLI Euromills has gatherered nearly 30% market share in Hungary, he said.
Pannonmill processes soft wheat,
which Kempkes said is exclusively
sourced locally - mainly from farmers
in the area. The mill produces a wide variety of flour, including semolina, whole
grain flour, and four types of soft wheat
flour as well as different types of bran.
"The customer universe comprises
leading food processors, industrial as
well as artisan bakeries, and the retail
trade," Kempkes said. "In general, our
group-wide ambition is to contribute to
make the business of our customers more
successful through a holistic approach
toward their needs with the objective to
become their supplier of choice."
To upgrade its operations in Hungary, LLI Euromills earlier this decade
decided to tear down five small, older
mills and replace them with a new,
modern mill in Csorna. Uzwil, Switzerland-based Buhler AG was chosen
as the equipment supplier.
"The key rationale for having a 'green-

The evolution of LLI
Leipnik-Lundenburger Invest Beteiligungs AG (LLI) was founded as a sugar beet production company in Moravia (now the Czech Republic) in 1867 and quickly became one
of the leading companies in Austria's sugar industry.
After World War II, LLI began to diversify. As its involvement in the sugar industry
gradually decreased, LLI expanded its interests in the Austrian milling sector and the hot
beverage vending machines business.
Since 1995, LLI's expansion efforts have focused exclusively on its core business: the
food and beverage sector in Austria and Central and Eastern Europe.
To give LLI more room to maneuver in forming additional partnerships, the shares
of LLI were removed from the stock exchange list in 2001-02. When the markets in
the former communist countries opened up, LLI began its successful expansion abroad.
In 2007, to ensure the efficient management of the LLI mill group, a holding company, LLI Euromills Gmbh, was created.
field' project was the aim to cement our
leading position in Hungary by deploying state-of-the-art Buhler technology,"
Kempkes said. "The latter supports efficient processes and excellence in operation and thereby enables us to deliver top
flour quality on a reliable and consistent
basis. Moreover, our group-wide international standards require superior standards in product safety."
Kempkes said the mill is ISO-, IFSand AIB-certified and operates with a
closed-air system, allowing for "slight
overpressure," thus supporting state-ofthe-art hygienic standards. He also noted that the production process allows for
"closed chain" tracing back from flour
output to grain input.
Wheat arriving at the mill is stored in
a concrete flat-bottom silo with a stor-

(Above) Buhler installed 14 Newtronic roller mills in the Pannonmill flour mill in Csorna, Hungary.
Photo courtesy of Buhler.
56

age capacity of 10,000 tonnes or 16
steel bins with storage capacities of 750
tonnes each. The wheat enters the facility's cleaning section, which is equipped
with Buhler equipment, including a Z+
Sortex optical sorter.
The milling section includes 14 Buhler
Newtronic roller mills and three Sirius
plansifters as well as Buhler's newest
technology - Antares roller mills and
Polaris purifiers - which were added as
part of the 2008 expansion.
The highly automated mill features an
online control system that automatically
indicates corrective action in case of
production disruptions. Kempkes said
the high degree of automation allows
the mill, which employs a total of 35
people, to be operated by a minimum of
two workers (excluding packaging) during the nightshift.
Finished product storage capacity is
2,000 tonnes, with approximately 70%
stored in bulk and 30% bagged using a
single-spout bagging station. Kempkes
noted that, as a quality control measure, all flour runs through a rebolt
sifter prior to bagging and shipping.
The vast majority of finished product is
transported by truck, but there is a train
connection on site and the small harbor
of Gönyü is located just 30 kilometers
from the facility.
Kempkes said that while the mill in
Csorna is designed so that its milling capacity can be doubled and its on-site storage silo capacity can be upgraded from

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World Grain - November 2009

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