The official ground-breaking ceremony for a new deep-freeze warehouse took place at the site of the DuPont Nutrition and Health (Danisco Deutschland) in Niebüll, Germany.
The new storage center is part of a joint project, which reflects the co-operative efforts of the sites of Epernon, France and Niebüll, Germany to secure additional capacity in cultures ensuring the company maintains its reputation for stability and performance for yogurt, fresh fermented and cheese industry customers around the world.
Synergies will be generated by enlarging storage capacity in Niebüll and by the leverage of existing fermentation capacity from the Epernon facility.
The storage expansion in Niebüll will be built on top of the current logistics building.
DuPont expects the construction work to be completed in Niebüll in the fourth quarter of 2018 and that the 12 m high building will be put into operation later this year.
“The investment of around €7 million ($8.6 million) forms part of the previously announced $60 million expansion plan for European cultures plants. We count on a combination of local planners and regional specialist companies to realize this important plant extension, building upon the overall logistics of the plant”, said Reinhold Sand, Site Manager Danisco Deutschland.
The new deep-freeze warehouse will be run with a temperature of -55°C.
“The cold storage cell will be equipped with a new, very energy efficient insulating panel and due to this, the new cooling system will on average run significantly less per day, which reduces energy use”, explained Michael Paulsen, Plant Manager at Danisco Deutschland.
A heat recovery system will also be integrated into the refrigeration technology.
Michael Paulsen said: “In the new storage there will be ports with different temperature zones as well as a semi-automated transport system to load and unload a freight elevator, that ensures the material transport from the ground to the upper floor.”
A two-story building with 300 m2 of floor space at each level will be in front of the new deep-freeze warehouse. The building will include logistics, building technology, office work places, switch rooms as well as social rooms for the employees working at the logistic center.
