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Successful completion of starch potato and wet corn campaigns

At the end of January, AGRANA successfully concluded the 2021|22 processing seasons for starch potatoes and wet corn at its Austrian starch factories.

Fecha: 02.02.2022

Potato campaign

Over the course of 104 days (prior year: 132 days), the potato starch factory in Gmünd (Lower Austria) received deliveries totalling 274,300 (prior year: 323,000) metric tonnes of starch and organic starch potatoes for processing. The starch content amounted to 19.1% and was therefore significantly higher than in the preceding year (2021: 18.0%) due to the favourable weather conditions in autumn. In addition, the factory also processed 15,300 (prior year: 15,500) metric tonnes of food-grade and organic food-grade potatoes for the manufacture of long-life potato products such as potato purée in the period to the end of January.

Wet corn campaigns

At the corn processing plant in Aschach a.d. Donau (Upper Austria) during the period 15 September to 19 December 2021, a total of 131,000 (prior year: 152,500) metric tonnes of freshly harvested corn, so-called wet corn, were processed. This was followed by a switch back to dry corn as the raw material. The immediate processing of wet corn is more environmentally friendly since energy-intensive drying of the raw material is not necessary. For example, the quantity of wet corn processed this year meant a saving of over 3.5 million litres of heating oil for drying purposes. Besides the environmental advantage, wet corn also enables farmers to achieve a higher gross margin compared to dry corn since the drying costs are not incurred.

Between 15 September 2021 and 31 January 2022, 105,000 metric tonnes of wet corn were besides wheat used for production purposes at AGRANA’s biorefinery in Pischelsdorf (Lower Austria).

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