Coppens International becomes visible
Tall cranes are being used to put the name signs up of the new owner of the feed mill in Leuth, Germany that once belonged to Bosch-Saturn.
The new owner is Coppens International, who bought the feed plant earlier this year. Since then, a lot of hard work has gone on to get the plant ready for fish feed production.
“We had to invest alot, but by the end of the year we want to start-up production without failures,” said plant manager Anno Galema.
“After the fire of last year we also had to purchase and install a new dryer, and the other machines present were not in a very good condition,” he said.
Testing of the system is ongoing and by the end of the year the two production lines should be operational.
The mill has a long history of ownership. It was originally built in 1962 by Milkivit to make cattle and pig feeds. In 1972 it was sold to Trouw and in 1992 to Paragon-Spillers. The latter tripled plant space in 1993 and sold the facility to Nestlé in 1993, which started making pet food. In 2002 it was sold to Rodi Petfood Groups, which employed 70 people at the plant.
In 2009 the Dutch owner sold 80% of its shares to Spanish company Grupo Dibaq and at the end of the year ran into insolvency.
Then early 2010 the Bosch-Saturn Animal Feed purchases the plant and 60 employees keep their job. At the end of 2011 production is stopped, this company breaks up and the workers lose their job. Early this year Coppens International after a buyout establishes its independent entity and buys the manufacturing plant to convert it into a fish feed plant for commercial and ornamental fish.
