Jan 26 2012 --- Agrana recently completed the sugar beet campaign at its refinery in Tulln, thereby signaling the successful close of the 2011/12 processing season at all of its facilities. With a duration of up to 135 days, these were the longest campaigns in the history of Agrana.

Following an average processing period of 123 days (prior year: 114 days), Agrana’s seven sugar beet processing plants in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania produced around 935,000 (prior year: 803,000) tonnes of sugar from 5.9 million (prior year: 5.4 million) tonnes of sugar beet. At Agrana’s sugar processing plant in Tulln, Lower Austria, the production volume for the first time exceeded the 300,000-tonne mark, representing the largest ever quantity of sugar produced at a single facility and a significant increase compared to the prior year (approx. 260,000 tonnes).

The yield per hectare in all countries involved in production activities amounted to an average of 65.5 tonnes based on a total cultivated area of 90,000 hectares. Due to the excellent quality of the beet and the very good weather conditions during both the season and the storage period, the average sugar content overall amounted to 17.66% (prior year: 16.5%), and 17.8% (prior year: 17.2%) in Austria.

This season, the environmentally sensitive transport of the sugar beet was once again one of the key focuses of the campaign organisation. Across all producing countries, around 40% of the sugar beet was transported by rail to the sugar factories, with the highest proportion transported by rail, 55%, being in Austria.

In addition, energy consumption related to sugar beet processing was reduced by more than 8% relative to the quantity of beet processed. During the course of the campaign in Hungary, over 50% of the primary energy requirements were met in the form of self-produced biogas.

Over the course of 145 days (prior year: 114 days), a total of 235,500 (prior year: 186,300) tonnes of starch potatoes were accepted for processing at the potato starch mill in Gmünd, Lower Austria. The volume of potato starch manufactured this season of over 50,000 tonnes is 32% above that of the previous year and is therefore the highest volume ever processed in Gmünd.

In addition, the autumn deliveries also included 9,500 (prior year: 8,500) tonnes of food-grade potatoes, as well as 4,600 (prior year: 3,000) tonnes of organic food-grade potatoes for long-life potato products such as potato flakes.

Furthermore, around 3,100 tonnes of food-grade potatoes grown under controlled organic conditions were used in the production of potato products for baby food.