AGRANA's Starch Factories

The AGRANA group makes starch and starch products at its four starch factories located in Austria, Hungary and Romania.

Austria
In Austria, AGRANA operates the potato starch factory in Gmünd (Lower Austria) and the corn starch factory in Aschach an der Donau (Upper Austria).

The Gmünd potato starch factory is located in the Waldviertel region of Lower Austria, close to the border with the Czech Republic.  The Waldviertel region is Austria's principal potato-growing area. The facility at Gmünd is Austria's only potato starch factory.

A proportion of our annual potato starch output of nearly 48,000 tonnes (limited by EU quota) is sold as native starch, the larger proportion however is converted to modified starch (wet derivatives and drum-dried products). The factory also has a saccharification plant used to make special maltodextrins. In addition to its starch production and processing systems, the Gmünd potato starch factory also has a system for making long-life potato products out of food potatoes (mainly mashed potato) as well as a baby food plant.

The Aschach corn starch factory has been investing in increasing corn starch production capacity in recent years and now has a processing capacity of 1,000 tonnes of corn per day (360,000 tonnes a year). Capital expenditure has also focused on infrastructure and logistics, on cutting odor and noise pollution and on water pollution control.
Aschach is centrally located in Austria with good rail and road links and close to a Danube harbor.

In addition to conventional yellow corn, the Aschach factory also processes special corn varieties (as well as certified GMO-free corn [INAC], organic corn and waxy corn) into native starches, starch derivatives and glucose syrups. In addition, the Aschach factory makes non-GMO corn starch products based on yellow and waxy corn.  The corn is tested in the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) laboratory set up at Aschach in 2002. Testing covers the entire production process from seed selection, planting and harvesting through to processing.


Hungary
In Hungary, AGRANA has a 50 percent stake in the Hungrana Kft. corn starch and isoglucose factory, Europe’s largest isoglucose producer. This facility is located at the heart of Hungary's principal corn-growing region and enjoys good transport access.

Hungary's isoglucose quota for the 2007|08 marketing year has been set at 179,000 tonnes, and the whole of that quota is available to Hungrana as the country's sole isoglucose producer.

The Hungrana corn starch factory has a daily processing capacity of 1,500 tonnes of corn and 150m3 of bioethanol. An investment program has been started to further expand the production capacity to 3,000 tonnes of processed corn per day in order to fill the higher EU quota for isoglucose following the reform of the EU sugar market regime, now totaling 218,927 tonnes from 2008|09, and in order to be able to boost the production of bioethanol to 450m3 per day.


Romania
The Group acquired and modernized the S.C. A.G.F.D. Tandarei s.r.l. corn starch factory in 2002. The factory is located in one of Romania's corn growing regions and processes about 100 tonnes of corn a day. Its principal products are corn-based native starch, modified starch and glucose syrups.