EuroTier, the world’s most important tradeshow in animal husbandry held every two years in Hanover, Germany, sees more than 2.600 exhibitors and 160.000 visitors from around the world completely fill 240.000 sqm of exhibition space. 2018 will see more than 115 Italian exhibitors, one of which is Munters with more than 3,900 employees in 30 countries, offering complete climate control solutions in the animal husbandry sector.
As a Swedish company based in Stockholm, Munters acquired the Italian company Euroemme in 1999, after which they began providing ventilation systems to now be able to offer full climate control applications.
Peter Gisel-Ekdahl, President Business Area AgHort for Munters was able to speak with DLG Italia and offer insight into their EuroTier experience and the past and present direction of Munters.
Munters is a historic exhibitor in EuroTier. How do you see EuroTier and your participaton?
Munters is a historic exhibitor indeed! In 1999, after the acquisition of Euroemme, Munters attended the show presenting its first ventilation system solution. EuroTier is the most important event for us. The trade fair is world-renowned with global attendance, giving us the opportunity to present our applications to a great audience, receiving feedback from there and understanding market trends. EuroTier is an excellent showcase for us to see the progress we have made and the lasting values of the solutions we offer. Quality and long lasting and sustainable applications are something we are very proud of and the event is a great occasion to prove that.
How have your exhibited products changed over the years? What innovations will you be exhibiting this year?
We have come a long way, passing from cooling pads to ventilation solutions and now we have full climate control application packages, tailored for poultry, swine and dairy.
We don’t want to show applications only – we strive to show the results and the added values from farmers’ experiences and let them tell how we helped them to reach the “Perfect Climate”.
This year we will present our new IoT projects to bring economic efficiency, animal welfare and transparency to the next level. Thanks to the join-venture with MTech-System, a pioneer and the international leader in software for the protein industry, we are bringing IoT to the poultry house. We are investing in SonarEcho, a solution using equipment to capture information and software to monitor and track data, allowing users to predict issues, identify correlations among parameters that don’t seem to be related and help in better resource planning to reduce waste and be more profitable.
The UN Global Goals for 2030 are very important on an international level, and Munters is actively working to achieve zero hunger, affordable and clean energy and responsible consumption and production. Could you please explain the actions you are taking and your influence a bit more?
Munters delivers products and services – including climate equipment for animal farming, greenhouses and grocery stores – to many companies that are involved in manufacturing and distribution of food. In these industries, perfect climate results, for example, in increased productivity, improved animal welfare and less food waste in shops. Our business area, AgHort, recently launched a service called SonarEcho, in which IoT technology is used to link poultry farms to food producers’ data systems, thereby ensuring full control throughout the entire delivery chain. The benefit is increased efficiency in production and more food for the world’s growing population, avoiding resource waste along the supply chain.
In fact, we go beyond the UN Global Goals, as the biggest challenge facing agriculture today is that the world’s population is growing but there is no more arable land. By the year 2050 we will need to produce 60% more food, but there is only land available to produce 20% of that need. The other 80% needs to come from being more efficient and sustainable.
Our challenge is to be able to produce the food needed and we contribute to that by driving changes in farming.
Munters’ AgHort largest acquisition occurred in 1999 of the Italian company Euroemme, specializing in fans. Is there a reason why you chose to acquire this company? What are the strong points of an Italian company in terms of technology and innovation?
Euroemme was one of the first acquisitions we made. We wanted to pass from cooling pads (our worldwide renowned CELdek) to have a broader offer in ventilation solutions.We want to have leading technologies and move fast, at the speed of change, as our customers and market require.
Our goal is to offer a global service in terms of sustainable, energy efficient air treatment. With the years, we expanded our portfolio, acquiring the best companies locally. At the moment, we have offices in 30 countries and work with premium partners to answer local demands with top quality applications and diversified-knowledge experts. One of our latest projects is to bring IoT to livestock by developing “smart farming”, to facilitate the farmer with the ultimate goal of bringing transparency and traceability from “farm to fork”, as we define the whole food chain.
After the acquisition of Italian company Euroemme, Munters began offering complete climate control systems for the rapidly expanding poultry industry. Quoting from your website, “Market leading Euroemme® extraction fans are famous for their high energy efficiency; outstanding production quality; tight sealing shutter design and the centrifugal shutter opening system allowing an un-obstructed air passage.” How have these fans helped to increase the selling price of birds?
Thanks to acquisitions we made in the past like Aerotech in 2001, Rotem in 2011 Reventa, MTech and Edata in 2015, we now offer complete climate solution packages for poultry, swine, dairy and greenhouse.
We provide the perfect comfort zone and farm monitoring system with top-notch brands and products:
- Munters with its Euroemme and Aerotech for ventilation systems with Munters Protect, the barrier against corrosion or fiberglass products, fresh air system, CELdek cooling system, light filtering and heating;
- Reventa: exhaust air system, fresh air system, ventilation, heating, curtains, wind protection and insulation;
- Rotem: the farm management system and controller;
- MTech and Edata; IoT applications and smart farming
With our applications and experience, we are able to provide farmers with numerous benefits:
- Feed conversion rate: feed is one the highest costs for pig farmers, consisting of 60-70% of the producer costs. Therefore, it is of essence that the animal can convert the consumed feed into body mass (feed conversion ratio) in the most optimal way, and avoid scenarios where feed and energy intake are used to keep the animal cool or warm it up.
- Animal health and welfare also strongly depend on this, as does the health of the staff working in the house or barn. By keeping the animals in a sound and closed, climate controlled environment and maintaining good bio security measures, there is less need to give the livestock medication, which saves money for the farmer.
- A perfect climate for livestock farming provides environmental excellence, increases profits and produces a healthier meat product for consumers.
Quoting from your website, “We believe strongly that ‘There is always a better way’; a way to improve what at first may look like the perfect way.” How has this influenced the R&D, daily work and also the results of the Euroemme Munters plant, now a fundamental part of Munters?
“There is always a better way” is one of our core values, fundamental to our daily job and it stands for innovation and continuous improvement. It means that we are always questioning our research to improve our applications, marketing, sale interactions, etc. We have a diversified team and the mix of cultures, knowledge, backgrounds and experiences helps us with this every day. We do not settle for the “easiest path” and we adapt at the pace necessary to satisfy our customers, always telling them “what’s coming next”.
The next edition of EuroTier will be held this November from the 13th to the 16th in Hanover, Germany. This leading tradeshow also hosts EnergyDecentral, a tradeshow for local energy supply. The main theme for EuroTier 2018 is “Digital Animal Farming – Management Support, Animal Health, Food Safety”.
EuroTier is geared towards animal husbandry and breeding with a technical program addressing breeding to marketing to technology and farm inputs for producing milk, meat, eggs and fish. 2016 also hosted the World Poultry Show (WPS), the huge international gathering point for the poultry sector. The next edition of WPS will once again be held with Eurotier in 2020.
More information can be found at https://www.eurotier.com/ and https://www.energy-decentral.com/.
For more information, please contact:
Nicoletta Frioni
n.frioni@dlg.org
+39 051 0068343
DLG Italia.com 