GEA, Chr. Hansen finalize world’s largest fermentation plant for cultures

GEA supplied one of the big fermentation lines to Chr. Hansen’s production facility.

GEA, Düsseldorf, Germany, collaborated with customer Chr. Hansen, Capital Region of Denmark, Denmark, to complete the inauguration of the world’s largest fermentation plant for bacterial cultures at the customer’s site in Copenhagen, Denmark in November.

Chr. Hansen’s production site features the latest highly complex AIR17-fermentation project four production lines; two lines with 45 cubic meter fermenters each and two lines with 100 cubic meter fermenters each. This makes it the largest production site of its kind worldwide, according to GEA. GEA delivered one of these big fermentation lines to the customer’s production facility – with installation taking place while existing production lines were running.

Challenges tackled with flexibility
According to Torsten Steenholt, executive vice president of Global Operations at Chr. Hansen, two criteria for success were crucial to Chr. Hansen when choosing its supplier and partner on this project — the ability to meet a very high level of hygienic requirements and providing an effective and high level of automation during production.

Part of a 10-year master plan
Ulrik Lund Jakobsen, head of GEA Application Center Food, said that the recently completed project AIR17, which was launched in September 2015 is part of a 10-year master plan and has involved an ongoing expansion of Chr. Hansen’s fermentation plant. GEA has been integrated in this project from the very beginning – starting with AIR7, which was also a great success, said the company.

SOURCE: GEA