Agrana Builds an Additional Drum Drying Plant at Its Potato Starch Mill in Gmünd
The fruit, starch, and sugar company Agrana will begin building a second drum drying plant in 2023 at the location of its potato starch mill in Gmünd (Lower Austria’s Waldviertel District).
Agrana plans to increase the production of technical special starches for the adhesive and construction industries with an investment of EUR23 million. The new facility is expected to be finished in July 2025, which would result in a doubling of the technical starch manufacturing capacity.
“Due to legal requirements, technical sectors are increasingly relying on organic materials and, therefore, selecting starches as a sustainable alternative to oil-based products. The expansion of our facility is in response to this rising demand and safeguards the competitiveness of the Gmünd site,” Norbert Harringer, CTO of AGRANA Beteiligungs-AG, mentioned. In Europe, AGRANA is the market leader in both technical and organic starches.
At Austria’s sole potato starch mill, with a workforce of roughly 420, Agrana makes both starches for the food sector as well as starches for technical uses, such as in the construction, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries. Organic starches, organic sweeteners, and organic long-life potato products like purées, potato dough mixes, and infant formula are also produced at the Gmünd facility by processing organic potatoes. In total, Agrana manufactures over 300 different starch products at its mill in Gmünd.
Agrana has established itself as a specialist for specialized starch applications with a total of five mills, of which three are situated in Austria, in Aschach/Donau, Gmünd, and Pischelsdorf, and an additional two in Szabadegyhaza (Hungary) and Tandarei (Romania).
Agrana’s starches are used in the construction chemicals industry to produce cement and slaked cement construction materials, as well as starch ether for gypsum and slaked lime. Due to their superior adhesive characteristics, Agrana starches are utilized in the adhesives industry as an alternative to synthetic adhesives and are referred to as green glues.
