Soybeans play an increasingly important role in the feed and food sector in Germany, as it is one of the leading non-GMO food markets, particularly for dairy products.
The expansion project is expected to be complete in Q3 2023 and will provide further incentives for local farmers to grow more non-GMO soybeans and to incorporate soy into crop rotation farming, said ADM.
The company declined to disclose the actual amount being invested or the projected plant capacity.
ADM’s long stated strategy is to expand its network of European soy processing facilities and support local farmers in increasing the region’s soybean acreage. Flexible crush capacity, scale and carefully managed production costs per unit all remain key to it achieving that objective.
Switch capacity
In 2017, the company began crushing non-GMO soybeans at its facility in Spyck, north-western Germany. Located close to the Dutch border, the site was previously only used to crush rape and sunflower seeds.
Switch capacity allows a facility to process more than one crop. The group’s rapeseed crushing plant in Straubing in Germany also saw switch capacity put in place a few years ago, with non-GMO soybean crushing getting underway there in June 2016.
An ADM spokesperson said at the time that adding switch capability to its plants allows ADM to utilize its assets more towards the protein markets when EU oil markets are under pressure. “We believe we are best placed in our industry to further grow our crush capacities organically and keep our production costs in line with or lower than our origin crushing operations.”
Last month, we heard that Germany had sufficient supplies of non-GMO feed to tap into despite the war in Ukraine. ADM Straubing reported then that its site was fully operational and that it considered non-GMO soybean supplies largely secure at that point, according to the Association of Food without Genetic Engineering (VLOG), the group behind the non-GMO ‘Ohne Gentechnik’ (OG) standard in Germany.
