MechChem Africa January-February 2025

Bühler: localising world class processing MCA takes a tour of the manufacturing facilities of Bühler Southern Africa in Honeydew, Johannesburg, and talks to the company’s MD, Marco Sutter, about the company’s local service offering for world-leading Bühler processing machinery.

F amily-owned with a history dating back to 1865, Bühler is an OEM that specialises in manufacturing and customising processing equipment, with a significant presence in the food indus try. “Globally, we make an impact on the lives of some two billion people every day,” begins Marco Sutter, MD of Bühler Southern Africa. Bühler's global operations span 140 coun tries, with 30 production sites, including the one in Johannesburg. The specialist product range includes grain milling machines, for which Bühler enjoys a whopping 65% of global market share. Some other notable global processing machinery on offer from the company include: For vehicle manufacturers, Bühler manu factures die-casting machines for engine blocks. These can typically deliver pressures of 9 000 t/cm and produce one engine cast ing every 40 s. Lenses for cellphone cameras are coated using nanotechnologies and spray-application machines from Bühler. Cosmetic products such as lipstick pig ments are accurately mixed and dispersed to give the accurate colour ranges of end products. For Li-ion batteries for electric vehicles,

the company produces the machines for injecting electrolytic pastes. Bühler machines are used to blend and formulate pet and farm animal foods and to extrude pellets. The company makes sweet-, biscuit- and wafer-machines, as well as meat-free textured soya-protein, “which is now a modern trend in society, while also being cheaper than meat”. Bühler makes noodle and pasta extrusion systems, as well as processing machines for all shapes and sizes of breakfast cereals and snacks. “We manufacture machines for food, feed and advanced materials, but the food process ing side, at around 60%, is still the biggest pil lar of our company’s global turnover,” Marco Sutter continues. “And manufacturing processes often re quire a series of processing machines. For the processing of coffee, for example, we have the cleaning, the roasting and then the grinding processes, and 60% of the world’s ground cof fee is produced using our solutions,” he adds. Turning back to grain, he says that Bühler’s range of milling solutions for wheat, maize and grains such as sorghum, are ubiquitous across the world. “Some 65% of the 380-mil lion tons of grain produced every year comes

off a Bühler-manufacturing machine,” Sutter estimates.

Local manufacturing and project services The Johannesburg-based South African manufacturing facility is mostly dedicated to producing Bühler aftermarket replacement components for the company’s installed base across Africa, which includes the company’s conveyor systems for the mining industry, fluted mill rollers and hammer mills for grain, and food-grade conveyors and bucket eleva tors for the local food industry. “We produce OEM spares such as impact rollers for the grinding mills; manganese-steel bars and chain links for conveyor systems; and powder coated parts for food-grade conveyors,” he notes, adding that Bühler Southern Africa currently employs 220 people. The Southern African arm of the company

The Johannesburg-based South African manufacturing facility has a continuous operation for rebuilding, fluting and grinding mill rolls for locally installed Bühler grain milling machines.

32 ¦ MechChem Africa • January-February 2025