Bühler and Vyncke form partnership to offer low-carbon food factories

Bühler Group and Belgian technology supplier Vyncke have formed a strategic partnership to offer integrated solutions that reduce carbon emissions in food plants. 

The collaboration aims to transform biomass side stream products into clean process energy while reducing the carbon footprint of customers. 

A statement from Bühler said: “The dependency on fossil fuels – and with this, CO2 emissions – can decrease from 20%-100%, depending on the raw material and side stream products”.

“This partnership is a key element in our strategy to massively reduce CO2 in the value chains of our customers,” said Johannes Wick, CEO of Bühler Grains & Food.

“Many industries rely on our solutions to reduce their fossil fuel consumption. With Bühler, we now aim to also become the standard to reduce the CO2 footprint of the food industry,” commented Peter Vyncke, owner of Vyncke. “Together, Bühler and Vyncke can now offer integrated and optimised solutions where economic and ecological benefits go hand in hand.”

Vyncke added: “Today, we are far from exploiting the full potential of recovering energy from side stream products. Our goal is to reduce the energy consumption of a food plant by up to 70%. The beauty of our solutions is that sustainability and economic criteria go hand in hand. Today, we are already enabling our customers to reduce emissions by 2.5 million tons of CO2 annually. By partnering with Bühler, we can further improve and scale these solutions in an integrated approach to create a much larger positive impact.”

The partnership will initially focus on the segments of cocoa, oat and malt processing. 

One joint project will be the expansion of a malt production plant for Bühler’s long-time business partner, Malteria Oriental S.A. in Montevideo, Uruguay. Vyncke will recover thermal energy from biomass, a by-product of malt production. 

“Vyncke will build a turn-key 20-megawatt superheated water boiler with dual combustion systems which will burn internal barley husks and plant rejects, completed by externally sourced wood chips,” Bühler’s statement explained. “This will save 35,000 tons of CO2 emissions each year compared to standard operational practices in Uruguay.”

“By working closely together, we aim to execute projects with less coordination effort for our customer. Our joint innovative strength will drive us into the future and our customers will have even better and more efficient solutions at their disposal,” said Wick.