IDM ¦ Site report
Jessen becomes
a strategic location
BMI: Focus on ingredients and cheese
The Jessen plant of Bayerische Milchindustrie eG (BMI),
which went into full operation some 18 months ago,
has been their largest plant for a long time, and is now
gaining in importance with the sale of the fresh produce
activities to Lactalis. With this strategic change BMI is now
concentrating more on ingredients and cheese. IDM was granted
an exclusive look into the cheese dairy, in which a total of € 165
million has been invested.
"The distribution of raw milk within the BMI group will be enhanced
by the transfer of our fresh produce activities around the
Würzburg dairy. Whereas the Jessen plant previously processed
55% of our of our milk volume, it now accounts for 80% of our
milk processing," explains Dr Thomas Obersojer, BMI's CEO and
Speaker. "However we are not completely abandoning the fresh
business because in Zapfendorf we produce fresh cheese and other
fresh dairy products for Lactalis."
Unaffected by milk processing, southern Germany remains
BMI's core region for whey. Of the 29 member companies, 2.2
billion kg are taken over and processed into the well-known B2B
industrial products. "In the future we want to expand whey processing
at our Zapfendorf plant," adds Winfried Meier, BMI board
member responsible for sales. The drying plant in Jessen currently
processes primarily its own whey, which accounts for about 25%
of BMI's total whey intake.
Highly efficient processes
Jessen is one of the most modern and efficient cheese dairies in
Europe, if not worldwide. The processes interlock perfectly in the
year-round, round-the-clock production. Mozzarella is produced
in balls and blocks, as well as various hard and semi-hard cheeses,
with a focus on Cheddar. Only two milk streams are processed,
conventional and organic.
6 · September/October 2022 ¦ international-dairy.com
About 70 trucks bring
the raw milk from a radius of
180 km around the clock via
three covered receiving lanes
into the plant. From the raw
milk storage tanks (with a
total capacity of 1.8 million kg)
it flows into the GEA-equipped
processing dept., which is equipped with two 60,000 l/h process
lines. In one line, double bactofugation is possible. The milk is adjusted
to the respective fat content in the tanks and, after prematuring
sent to the two cheese dairies.
Hard cheese plant
The cheddar cheese dairy was set up by Tetra Pak and has a capa-
city of 100 t/day. Nine Tebel OST vats, each with 20,000 l capa-
city are used for the production of Cheddar, Cagliata, semi-hard
cheese and Emmental. The cheese dairy runs for 20 hours a day,
with cleaning scheduled for four hours. The cultures are not grown
by the dairy itself, but are added directly (e.g. DVS from Chr.
Hansen). There is no need for presses and moulds are completely
dispensed with, the curd-whey mixture is instead processed in a
three-storey Alfomatic plant.
The Cheddar chunks are pneumatically conveyed onto six
14-metre-high Casomatic columns, where they are formed into
blocks of cheese. Directly at the lower end of the column the
blocks are immediately bagged by two Stäubli robots. After sealing
the bags coming from the reel in a Multivac machine, the blocks
are then weighed and and labeled (15 kg of Cagliata, 20 kg of
Cheddar, 40 kg of Emmental), before they are packaged in a grey
zone adjacent to the cheese dairy. These are palletised, and the
pallets are then sent fully automatically to the ripening warehouse.
/international-dairy.com
