Feedmill: Felleskjøpet Agri BA

Farmers cooperative Felleskjøpet Agri BA is the largest cooperative feedmiller in Norway, with about a 50% market share. Amongst others the company operates 15 feed mills across the country and employs around 2,300 people. With 57 grain depots it is also the largest grain collector in Norway. Head office is in Gardemoen, app. 50 km north of Norway's capital Oslo. The pictured feedmill is located in Stange, 1 hour drive north of gardemoen.

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Control room where the whole feed milling process is managed.
For controlling the pelleting process Norvidan programs are used, of which you see a screen shot here.
All planning and control is done by computer, but to have some overview the process controllers also prefer a white board for special products.
The Apis Spektron is a online NIR instrument, which automatically samples the feed and sends the result to a central computer for evaluation.
Here the Apis Spektron is located under the cooler to sample and analyse finished products.
Because the feed mill makes a large volume of cattle products the molasses unit has a greater size than in most feed mills.
Huller Stratopact from Bühler used for dehulling of oats, which is a difficult product in the grinding process. The hulls will in the future be used as a fuel for generating steam.
All ground ingredients are mixed in this giant stainless steel Forberg mixer. The double paddle mixer has a capacity of 16,000 litres. The mash is mixed homogenously in 90 seconds with 10/3 ratio, meaning 10 grams of product can be mixed in 3 tonnes of mix with less than 5% variation.
Discharge part of the Forberg mixer where part of the molasses is added to the mix.
Felleskjøpet Agri makes use of the Bühler Hysys hygienise system to heat-treat the feed to destroy salmonellas prior to pelleting. In other factories also Kahl expanders are used. Salmonella free feed is guaranteed by the cooperative.
Half of Felleskjøpet Agri’s production is cattle feed. Hard dense pellets are required because transport distances are long.
To test pellet quality the latest version of the Holmen pellet tester is used, which operates semi-automatic with compressed air. Results are automatically stored and send to a central computer.
With this frequency control unit of 500 kW (right) for the hammer mill and of 350 kW (left) for the pellet mill a lot of energy is saved. The unit paid itself back in one year after installing.
In the room with the frequency controller a heat exchanger is placed. The heat of the out going air is collected and used for pre-heating the water in the steam boilers.
Felleskjøpet Agri truck at loading. A fairly simple moveable hopper is loading the compartments of the tanks. Fast loading is not really an issue, since it can take up to four days before a truck has returned from a delivery.
All maintenance and repair at Felleskjøpet Agri is performed in its own workshop.
Vebjørn Nilsen is process manager at Felleskjøpet Agri. He is determined in controlling and lowering costs by automation and data collection and analysis. Labour is expensive in Norway.
Close to Stange where Felleskjopet Agri is located is the town of Hamar. Here on the occasion of the Winter Olympics of 1994 a new speed skating stadium was built. Called the “Vikingskipet” it resembles an upside down up ship of Vikings.