Excerpt from an infomercial in Drietandmagazine, November 2011
We are standing with Alex Van Malleghem next to the new factory of FRANSON. Alex speaks with passion and pride about the company with which he continues the lifetime achievement of generations. It’s also the company in which he can use his abilities as an agricultural engineer to innovate and thus play a leading role. The new buildings between the old factory and the offices is the latest result of this urge for innovation. The challenge was to offer the honest ALL MASH product in a purer form to the cattle farmer. This meant that the production process had to be rethought from scratch. Innovating by simplifying, it has often proved to be the recipe for a brilliant idea.
It can always be better
Investing in cattle feed in these times, you must be crazy? Alex Van Malleghem is convinced that this statement is not true. Running a company means evolving continuously. The more difficult the sector, the more important it is to be innovative. The agricultural sector, and in this case the sector of the cattle farming, is a challenge. FRANSON chose to specialize in ALL MASH from the beginning. ALL MASH is a very honest cattle feed of which the individual commodities remain distinct as such – what you see is what you get.
In 2007, FRANSON took over Transax in Wallonia. This small cattle feed company delivered an ALL MASH to be envied, with hardly fine fraction. Fine fraction sinks to the bottom, causes segregation and cattle do not fancy it. Because of the small scale of Transax, the company could trade its raw materials in two sheds. This ‘flat’ was of working probed to be a formula for an even purer product. FRANSON wanted the same result for a larger volume. Reducing the displacement of products to prevent breakage was the first assignment. Less breakage means less dust, which results in a better product.
Other silos
Raw materials which are unloaded into 35 meters high silos, in which they are subjected to tons of pressure, only to end up in a narrow funnel cannot possibly maintain their original kernel or flake size. Traditional silos are meant for flour and therefore cannot prevent the formation of fine particles. Time to reinvent the silo: meet the ‘relax silo’. In the new production plant of FRANSON, the silos are oriented horizontally, the walls are multi-staged for more grip and each silo has four funnels. A good idea can be that simple.
Less transport
Transport is a form of trading and therefore had to be reduced.
The unloading of the raw materials, storage, mixing and the delivery of the final product takes place in the new FRANSON factory within a cube of 25x25x25 meters. Everything is designed to save the original shape of the products. The rather ‘aggressive’ traditional transport system, with its mortar grinders, chain conveyors and elevators, has been replaced with containers, a roller bridge, product-friendly conveyor belts and a mobile mixer. The raw materials come nowhere under heavy pressure: from A to Z they overcome a height difference from 25 meters instead of 100 meters in the existing factory.
The factory of the future
The new production plant, which is designed to deliver the product of the future, also offers several additional advantages.
First, the loading and unloading process is accelerated. Moreover, less transport equals lower energy consumption, which is good for the environment as well as for our wallet. In the new factory, there is less friction between the product and the installation, resulting in less wear and tear, and less maintenance. And last but not least, the production plant was built in such a way that it meets all the hygiene and traceability standards.
If the cattle knew that the sugar syrup comes from barrels that were used in a previous life for quality wine from Mâcon, they would definitely choose for ALL MASH from FRANSON.