Fons Kuijpers, a seasoned Dinnissen process expert with over 15 years of experience. (Image source: Dinnissen Process Technology)

Dinnissen Process Technology, a system integrator specialising in process technology for powders, granules, and bulk goods, announces the opening of yet another branch: Dinnissen Pacific

This marks the company’s sixth branch, in addition to its two locations in the Netherlands, one in Germany, one in Indonesia, and the recently opened office in the UK. Dinnissen Pacific will be headquartered in Auckland and daily management will be led by Fons Kuijpers, a seasoned Dinnissen process expert with over 15 years of experience.

Dinnissen has a large installed base in both New Zealand and Australia. The key difference now is that customer contact will be handled by a local expert, in combination with experts in the Netherlands. This ensures a stronger understanding of local culture, conditions and regulations.  

The company's mission is to enable producers worldwide to efficiently and reliably produce high-quality food/chemicals for people, pets and livestock, both now and in the future. As part of this commitment, the company has steadily expanded its international presence to better serve customers in key regions.

With the addition of branches in Germany, Indonesia, the UK, and now New Zealand, Dinnissen strengthens its global footprint while staying true to its core values.

“We open new branches with the clear goal of enhancing our local presence and being more responsive to the needs of our customers," explained technical & commercial director, Frans Bakker. "The ability to provide fast service and support locally makes our systems even more reliable. That reliability is at the heart of our mission to create a bigger economic footprint and ensure a stable global food supply.”

The platform, the first resource of its kind is focused specifically on Europe and Central Asia. (Image source: FAO)

As the digital agricultural landscape rapidly evolves in Europe and Central Asia, regional challenges have begun to arise, that need to be carefully monitored and addressed

In February this year, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) launched the AgriTech Observatory, offering a tool to monitor the digital agriculture landscape, while identifying innovative solutions to regional challenges and scaling up good practices. 

Equipped with interactive filters, a map, and analytics, the tool enables users to explore a multitude of digital agriculture initiatives, track regional developments and perform analyses. Moreover, it also contributes to existing open data and knowledge sharing initiatives, such as the FAO AgroInformatics Platform.

“The AgriTech Observatory lies at the heart of our dedication to driving digital innovation in agriculture,” said Daniela Di Gianantonio, FAO head of Digital Agriculture. “This dynamic platform addresses the lack of data in digital agriculture in Europe and Central Asia and serves as a crucial knowledge portal for researchers, practitioners and innovators, enabling us to collaboratively transform agrifood systems in the region.”

Throughout this year, the Observatory is set for continuous evolution and enhancement to foster innovation and digital transformation across the agricultural sector.

AFIA presents the award to ADM’s Bluffton Plant (Image source: AFIA)

The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA), in collaboration with Feedstuffs, has named ADM’s animal nutrition feed facility in Bluffton, as its 2023 Premix/Ingredient Feed Facility of the Year

The award was presented to plant manager, Brent Weedman during AFIA’s Purchasing and Ingredient Suppliers Conference that took place in San Antonio.

In response to fluctuating markets, the Bluffton facility has made a strategic shift to manufacturing premixes.

ADM North America director of Animal Nutrition, Junior Rogers expressed pride in their Bluffton Team. “We have introduced DRR in all of our facilities and Bluffton continues to drive continuous improvement,” he stated. “The DRRs are designed to keep visibility and balance in our metrics. This ensures we remain focused and urgent to service our customers.” 

For more information, visit: https://www.adm.com/ and https://www.afia.org 

At the Protein Application Centre, customers will be able to validate their ideas in protein processing to produce plant-based foods. (Image source: Bühler)

Swiss technology group, Bühler along with German engineering company, endeco has recently launched its new Protein Application Centre, as part of the company’s expanded food innovation capabilities in Uzwil, Switzerland

The centre takes the process and product development of proteins to new heights by completing the technology solutions necessary to go from pulses or grains to finished consumer products such as dairy or meat replacements, or for intermediate ingredients, such as proteins, fibres or starches. 

With dry and wet processing options for plant proteins, Bühler now offers solutions to its customers covering the whole protein value chain – from field to consumer products, thus allowing customers to develop and validate their ideas in protein processing to produce plant-based foods, such as meat substitutes and beverages. The application centre also brings with it unique technology solutions to help maximise the value of side streams generated in the food industry.

Spanning an area of 300 sq m, the Protein Application Centre offers customers testing facilities on a small and larger scale, allowing them to test their ideas on a small but highly flexible processing line with capacity of 1 kg/h, while also being able to validate their ideas on the industrial-size production line with an infeed capacity of 200 kg/h, optimising the manufacturing process to scale production. In both processing lines, a wide variety of raw materials, such as pulses, grains, and other protein sources, can be split into their major components – protein, starch, and fibre. 

Two different processes of protein isolation are offered by the centre. The classical means is based on an isoelectric precipitation process and realised with the use of decanter centrifuges, while the alternative process is membrane fractionation. Bühler’s technology partner for the former process is Flottweg, a developer and producer of high-performance decanter centrifuges, separators and plants for solid-liquid separation. For the latter process, another of Bühler’s technology partners, Swiss company MMS brings its expertise in membrane technology, enabling the production of components with superior functionality, sensory, and nutritional benefits.  

“At every point in the process there is still a huge potential for optimisation, as sustainability is always an integral part of Bühler’s process development. This means we are searching for the most efficient processes with the lowest footprint," explained scientific lead of the Protein Application Centre, Katarina Slettengren. "Together with our sustainability team, we can offer quantification and reduction opportunities of our customer’s industrial footprint.”  

In the upstream stage, the Protein Application Centre collaborates with Bühler’s Grain Innovation Centre (GIC), where the customer can test and develop cleaning, sorting, grinding, sifting, and dry fractionation process technologies for multiple grains and seeds, such as wheat, durum, rye, corn, and pulses. At the GIC, dry processing technology to generate protein concentrates will be available to customers after the facility’s renovation is completed, by the end of 2024.  

The unique combination of the Protein Application Centre and the Extrusion Application Centre enables the direct connection from wet-separated proteins into an extrusion system. This helps to find novel and more sustainable processing solutions from the field to the fork. Bühlers CTO, Ian Roberts further mentioned that the Protein Application Centre also gave customers the unique opportunity to explore and create next-gen food ingredients for meat and dairy alternatives, while addressing the entire protein value chain in collaboration with all the other application and training centres in Uzwil.

For more information, visit: https://www.buhlergroup.com/global/en/homepage.html