Anklam sugar factory

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Suiker Unie GmbH & Co. KG

logo
legal form GmbH & Co. KG
founding 1883
Seat Anklam , Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Number of employees 160 (2016)
sales 89.5 million euros (2010)
Branch Food industry
Website www.suikerunie.de

Anklam sugar factory as seen from the stone gate
Aerial view of the Anklam sugar factory

The Anklam sugar factory has been the only sugar factory in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania since 2007 and is located in Anklam in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district . The company, which belongs to the Dutch company Suiker Unie, processes sugar beet into sugar , bioethanol , biomethane and animal feed. With 135 employees, around 1.4 million tons of sugar beet were processed in the 2013 financial year and a turnover of around 120 million euros was achieved.

The development

On January 31, 1883, the Pommersche Zuckerfabrik Anklam public limited company was founded. The sugar beets were delivered by ship via a specially constructed branch channel from the Peene and via the company's own rail connection.

In the past, the factory was expanded in several stages. Due to severe damage towards the end of the Second World War , no production could be carried out for two years. During this time, the reconstruction took place, the conversion into a state-owned company and from 1948 to 1949 the conversion to a white sugar factory .

In 1991 VEB was privatized and sold to the Danish food company Danisco , which took it over on May 1, 1991 from the Treuhandanstalt together with seven other sugar factories in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. Extensive modernizations and expansions took place. In 1992 and 1994, Danisco invested around 180 million euros in expanding the Anklam sugar factory. It has become one of the most modern sugar factories in Europe. The sugar factories in Barth, Demmin, Friedland, Jarmen, Prenzlau, Stralsund and Ticino were closed.

In 2007 the foundation stone was laid for an ABE bioethanol plant, which started producing bioethanol in 2008 with a capacity of 56 million liters. The investment for this was just under EUR 25 million. Since then, the sugar factory has had a second mainstay with the generation of renewable energy. In addition, biogas will be produced from 2012. The planned investment amounts to 16 million euros.

When Danisco sold its sugar division to Nordzucker in 2008 , the Federal Cartel Office ordered that the Anklam sugar factory be sold to another buyer. As a result, it was sold to Suiker Unie, a subsidiary of Royal Cosun , in early 2009 .

Since March 2, 2009, the Anklam sugar factory and its subsidiary Anklam Bioethanol GmbH (ABE) have been part of the Dutch Royal Cosun UA group. The activities grouped under the name Suiker Unie include a. also two sugar factories in the Netherlands.

In the summer of 2013, the sugar factory commissioned a new plant for the production of bio-methane gas from pressed beet pulp, which is so far unique in Germany for a sugar factory.

At the end of August 2015, the introduction of bio-ethanol into the Peene, which is adjacent to the sugar factory, resulted in massive fish deaths over a length of several kilometers.

On August 31, 2016, Anklam Bioethanol GmbH was merged with Suiker Unie GmbH & Co. KG, so that Suiker Unie GmbH & Co. KG - Anklam sugar factory, with its ancillary operations in bioethanol and biomethane production, appears again as one company. The name is indicative of the company, as it reflects both the historical character of the factory and the identification with the Dutch company. Because in Suiker Unie, the Anklam sugar factory has found an investor who has made this location profitable by producing renewable energies and who is now ready to invest 60 million euros in an open European sugar market.

Employees 2016:
Sugar factory Core forces: 160
Campaign forces: 28
Trainee: 18th

The sugar beets

The factory receives beet from a growing area that stretches from the Polish border in the east to the heights of Rostock in the west, and from the island of Rügen in the north to the Uckermark in the south. The beet cultivation area is approximately 19,300 hectares. The sugar yield has increased by 80% since 1991.

Beet yield
t beets per ha Sugar content in% t sugar per hectare
1991 38.3 16.0 6.1
1997 44.5 16.9 7.5
2002 49.0 17.5 8.6
2006 50.4 17.1 8.6
2009 61.2 18.2 11.1
2010 * 55.5 17.2 9.6
2011 * 61.0 17.7 10.8

* estimated

The basis for successful cultivation is the sowing. The seeds are obtained exclusively from the factory, with modern top varieties being cultivated.

The basis for the choice of the variety are the results of variety trials that are carried out nationwide.

The Anklam sugar factory has received a sugar quota of almost 112,000 tons of white sugar from the EU . This corresponds to around 4% of the total German sugar quota. On the basis of the sugar quota and the amount of beet cultivated so far in the individual cultivation areas, multi-year contracts have been concluded with around 380 farms for the cultivation of a fixed amount of beet for sugar production. Since the previous limitation on the marketing of food sugar inside and outside the EU will be lifted from 2017, the sugar factory is expanding its capacities with this in mind.

The cultivation rules are laid down in an agreement with the Anklamer Growers' Association for Sugar Beets (AVZ eV). The AVZ is the factory's contact for all contractual and cultivation issues.

The contract cultivation includes a total delivery volume of around 1.3 - 1.4 million tons of beet. Of this amount of beet, 60–70% is used for the production of food sugar. The remaining beets serve as raw material for the production of biofuel in the ethanol plant. From 2017, both usage options will be billed based on the market price. In addition, Suiker Unie GmbH & Co. KG guarantees a minimum price.

Sugar beets are grown on around 6% of the agricultural area in the factory's catchment area and thus make a valuable contribution to a diverse crop rotation. The beet cultivation is 100% certified in accordance with the Biofuel Sustainability Regulation.

The sugar beet harvest lasts from September to mid-November, with some of the beets then being stored on the edge of the field until they are processed. Processing begins at the same time and continues until January of the following year. This period of about 120 days is called the beet campaign.

All beets are transported by contractually bound shipping companies that are certified for the transport of food and feed. The delivery takes place continuously over 24 hours a day, but is limited by a night time limit. It is transported with a semitrailer truck. A high proportion of freight returned from the factory to agriculture minimizes the number of vehicles.

From all beet growers who deliver to the factory, an automatic sampler draws a quality sample from the truck before it is dumped in the beet yard. The results flow into both production control and payment for the beets.

Modern beet loading devices are used to pre-clean all of the beets in the field in order to limit adhering soil and other additions to the beet delivered. The traceability is done via GPS.

The beets are processed immediately after delivery. For this purpose, after being unloaded in the beet yard, they are transported to the beet washing plant by means of large wheel loaders and conveyor belts before the actual processing begins.

The factory

Beet processing takes place in several production steps in a continuous process. The first section of beet processing is outside the actual factory. It is mainly done by washing with water, supported by various technical facilities, a separation of the beets from earth, stones, herbs and other additions. In the extraction production section, the fresh beets are cut into thin slices. The "schnitzel" ends up in so-called extracts, where the cell walls are opened up with water at a temperature of 70 to 72 ° C. The raw sugar beet juice escapes through diffusion.

In the third section, the juice obtained is cleaned using lime , which is added to the sugar juice in the form of lime milk for cleaning. For this purpose, a lime kiln for burning limestone is operated directly in the factory.

The lime kiln, a 350 m³ shaft kiln for burning about 250 tons of lime per day, is the symbol of the sugar factory. The carbolime produced in juice purification is a lime fertilizer used in agriculture.

The subsequent evaporation of the water creates sugar syrup, which sugar makers call syrup. The last section is the sugar house. There, controlled crystallization initially creates a mixture of pure sugar crystals and so-called mother syrup. Depending on the processing stage, the crystal suspension is either first homogenized and cooled, or it is sent straight to centrifugation. After cooling and drying, the crystals separated there are present as pure white sugar.

Energy and auxiliary material requirements
gas 40 million Nm³
limestone 30,000 t
coke 2,500 t

During the beet campaign, around 40% of the total syrup produced is immediately converted into white sugar.

The processing capacity is currently around 12,000 tons of beets per day. About 900-1,000 tons of white sugar and about 2,000 tons of syrup are produced from this every day. In total, the sugar factory produces 100,000 tons of white sugar in the beet campaign. During the beet campaign, part of the syrup is used to produce bioethanol in parallel to the sugar production, the rest is stored in 3 tanks.

In addition to the ethanol production, part of the syrup will also be processed into white sugar in a later syrup campaign. This takes place in the course of spring.

power supply
* two gas-fired steam boilers, each with 60 t steam / h, 93 bar
* an auxiliary boiler 10 t steam / h, 10 bar
* a turbo generator with a power generation of 16.9 MW

In addition to being fully self-sufficient, the factory's energy center will feed around 6 MW into the public grid during the sugar campaign.

The factory is connected by road, rail and an inland port on the Peene .

The products

The sugar quality produced in the Anklam sugar factory exceeds the quality standard of the EC-Kat specified by industrial customers. II.

The sale takes place primarily on the German market. Customers include manufacturers of confectionery, beverages, foodstuffs, baked goods, dairy products and canned goods. Most of the sugar is supplied loose and, if necessary, prepared beforehand according to customer-specific requirements.

Own storage capacity
sugar Sugar silo 53,000 t
Flat storage 9,000 t
Syrup Tank farm 135,000 t
molasses Tank farm 18,200 t
Bioethanol Tank farm 4,300 t
Biomethane Silo storage area 100,000 t
Pellets Flat storage 3,500 t
Vinasse Tank farm 5,000 t

The bioethanol is produced in the ethanol plant attached to the sugar factory. It is certified in accordance with the statutory sustainability requirements and already meets the greenhouse gas reduction from 2017. It is supplied as a renewable fuel to refineries and tank farms, where it is mixed with petrol.

Annual production quantities
White sugar 130,000 t
molasses 20,000 t
Vinasse 17,000 t
Dry pulp pellets 30,000 t
Pressed pulp 100,000 t
Carbo-lime fertilizer 50,000 t
Bioethanol 75,000 m³
Biomethane 11 million Nm³

In addition to sugar for human nutrition and bioenergy, the sugar beet is also used to produce feed for livestock farms. These include pellets, pressed pulp, molasses and vinasse.

For the production of particularly high quality forage, some of the extracted beet pulp is dried in an evaporation dryer with a water evaporation rate of 29 t / h. The energy-efficient and environmentally friendly process is heated with steam. The by-products are water and low pressure steam, 100% of which are reused in the factory.

The excess schnitzel and other residues and waste materials have been fermented into raw biogas in the newly built biogas plant since 2013. With the help of a pressurized water scrubber, this is then processed into pure biomethane in natural gas quality and fed directly into the natural gas network as green energy via a system from edis Netz AG. In addition to its use in the heating market, biomethane is also used as a fuel. This product also meets the legal requirements with regard to sustainability and greenhouse gas reduction.

The factory is designed to comply with the strictest environmental regulations. There is a quality management system certified according to ISO 14001: 2015, ISO 22000 / FSSC, ISO 26000, ISO 50001: 2011, QS, GMP, BiokraftNachV, 36.BImSchV and REDcert / SAI.

Ethanol pollution of the Peene 2015

In September 2015, a large amount of ethanol leaked on the site of the bioethanol plant, which leaked into the nearby Peene via a rainwater canal . The reason for this was a blocked locking system, only a few days after a security check of the factory. As a consequence, numerous aquatic animals perished and over 4 tons of dead fish were recovered. Despite investigations by the public prosecutor's office, the processing of sugar beet started again from mid-September.

Web links

Commons : Zuckerfabrik Anklam  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Visitor Information", Ed .: Suiker Unie GmbH & Co. KG, Anklam, as of September 2016
  2. Search in the Federal Gazette Suiker Unie: Annual financial statements for the business year from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010
  3. Zuckerfabrik Anklam ends beet campaign with record results ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.biogasrat.de
  4. http://www.bauernzeitung.de/?redid=325332 (link not available)
  5. ^ History of Anklams ( Memento from August 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  6. Start of construction of the bioethanol factory in Anklam ( Memento from July 31, 2015 in the web archive archive.today )
  7. Sugar factory Anklam remains ( Memento from July 31, 2015 in the web archive archive.today )
  8. nordkurier.de - Schnitzel-Gas is supposed to attract the royal couple. In: nordkurier.de. June 17, 2013, archived from the original on October 12, 2013 ; Retrieved October 5, 2013 .
  9. Poison from sugar factory kills thousands of fish. In: The time . September 8, 2015, accessed September 17, 2015 .
  10. a b c d e "Visitor Information", Ed .: Suiker Unie GmbH & Co. KG, Anklam, as of September 2016
  11. "Visitor Information", Ed .: Suiker Unie GmbH & Co. KG, Anklam, as of 2010
  12. Polluted Peene: Leak found - NDR Nordmagazin from September 2, 2015
  13. ^ Backhaus: The ethanol leak was not a disaster - NDR 1 Radio MV September 16, 2015

Coordinates: 53 ° 51 ′ 21.1 ″  N , 13 ° 42 ′ 21.5 ″  E