Haarslev Industries is a full-service rendering provider. The company handles products from the protein recycling division. This includes feather processing, blood processing, fish meal and fish oil processing, and creating components for feed and pet food production.
The group also handles products from the environmental division. This includes treating sewage sludge – for instance full or partial drying, hydrolysis, heat recovery and odour control – drying biomass for biofuel and drying spent grain for feed. The business also helps to develop and produce machines for these rendering and processing industries.
“Mechanical and thermal dewatering – that is our core technology that we apply to various sectors, such as the rendering industry, fish meal and fish oil production, and industrial and municipal sludge drying,” adds Karina Lykke Lumholt, Marketing Manager.
Even though Haarslev Industries already offers many different services to a variety of sectors, the company is pushing forward into new fields of the industry. Some new areas of activity include processing high-grade end products for human food production, and medical or industrial products are also becoming possibilities.
The reason the company can be so active in so many areas is that it is a full-service partner with various companies it works with. “We know all the processes in a plant and can actually deliver the whole factory, including odour control and other aspects,” explains Ms. Lumholt. “We can act as a consultant to rendering plant managers or owners and advise them on which process to choose in any aspect.”
The company also participates in R&D with its clients and operates a pilot plant in Denmark that is used for testing customized developments that have been created for some of the company’s partners. Haarslev Industries is also very dedicated to sustainability.
The company specializes in helping plants with their energy optimization and heat recovery. “We are well aware of all regulations and can be involved as a consultant in this regard,” says Ms. Lumholt.
Furthering its goal of sustainability, the company also works toward finding new applications for rendered products. It is crucially important to the company that waste products are treated in a biosafe way. An example of this is removing water from wet biofuel. “Moisture makes biomass expensive to transport, difficult to store and lose its thermal value,” adds Ms. Lumholt. Haarslev Industries supplies superior drying equipment for the production of pellets and briquettes.
Solutions offered by the company include the disc dryer system, featuring efficient heat transfer and optionally an integrated waste heat recovery system used for the production of district heating. Disc dryer systems can recover up to 80% of the energy input. Indirect heating of the dryer eliminates the risk of fire and explosion, which makes the system very safe.
Due to this full-service and sustainable approach, the company is able to work with partners in many different sectors. 69% of the company’s business comes from the rendering industry, 19% comes from industrial and municipal sludge drying, and 12% comes from after-sales.
“Our customers really praise our after-sales,” says Ms. Lumholt. “We don’t leave a plant before it is 100% working and don’t leave clients alone to cope with any problems that might arise.” Clients of the company include slaughterhouses, fish mills, municipalities around the world such as Hamburg, Germany and Zurich, Switzerland, the paper industry and the paint industry.
“In terms of exporting our products and gaining new clients, we focus on areas where the market is not saturated,” adds Ms. Lumholt. Emerging markets are a big focus for the company, and it sees many available opportunities within the emerging markets.
Haarslev Industries was founded in 1973 as a family-owned company in Denmark. In 2006, the company decided to take on more of a global approach to business and merged with one of its competitors. This merger led to the company acquiring even more companies and starting up new office locations on a yearly basis.
Haarslev grew from just a few employees in the beginning to over 1,300 employees today. In 2012, the business changed from a family-owned setup to being owned by the equity fund Altor Equity Partners. Haarslev Industries also expanded from only being active in Denmark to being active in Norway, Poland, Spain, France, Germany, the UK, Russia, Turkey, India, China, Malaysia, New Zealand, the US, Mexico, Peru and Brazil.
For the future, Haarslev Industries intends to expand its R&D focus, looking for ways to make the industry more sustainable, and wants to continue benefiting its clients in any way possible.
