Press releases
Charles F. Strong, PhD appointed Technical Sales Director
New appointment by Big Dutchman China
Big Dutchman is pleased to announce the appointment of Charles F. Strong, Ph.D. as Technical Sales Director in China. He will be based at the recently established Beijing Sales office. Chuck has more than 30 years industry experience and has spent the last 10 years travelling and working throughout the Asian region. His role will be to oversee and offer technical solutions to sales teams, technicians and customers.
“We are pleased and excited to have Chuck joining the team. With his wealth of market experience, his appointment will enhance our business and bring us even closer to our customers,” said Brian McCawley, President of Big Dutchman China.
“With the increasingly successful and growing levels of business activity in China, the establishment of this position is a strong symbol of the ongoing commitment to the Big Dutchman customers and to the China market. It will further strengthen Big Dutchman’s position within the Asia region.”
Effective use of electricity and heat
Biogas-Know-how from Calveslage
Tierzuchtgut Losten in Bad Kleinen (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany) is one of the most modern pig farms in Germany. In future this innovative business enterprise will be heating its housing systems according to climate-friendly principles- with the waste heat from a biogas plant which was designed in Vechta-Calveslage. Over 80 guests were present to symbolically start up operations of the new 526 kW(el) system in a Christmas atmosphere at a special celebration for this purpose. The Managing Director of Gut Losten, Alwin Neteler and his son Bernd, expressed their very personal thanks to their neighbours and employees, representatives of the competent authorities as well companies involved in the construction “for the successful cooperation”.
In particular Alwin Neteler praised Tobias Oswald, the “permanently available” project engineer at BD AgroRenewables GmbH & Co. KG, which is part of the Big Dutchman Group, and was responsible for the planning as well as installation of the system.
“As a subsidiary of the company which had the pleasure of renewing the housing systems here, this contract represented a great honour as well as a commitment for us”, BD AGRO-Managing Director Uwe Heider said with considerable emphasis. He underlined the exemplary planning phase with the customers, which also formed the foundation for a smooth implementation of the new project. Here we can genuinely speak in terms of totally successful collaboration, said Heider.
On a walkabout tour, he clearly described the advantages of the new system: “In addition to the pig slurry, which is available in great abundance, thanks to innovative stirring technology it is also possible to effectively ferment maize and grass silage as well as coarse grain. The annual electricity production amounts to approximately 4.5 million kilowatt hours and is equivalent to the requirement of over 1,000 detached houses.”
Secretary of State visits Big Dutchman subsidiary in Malaysia
BD Asia receives high-ranking visit from Germany
Dr. Gerd Müller, the Parliamentary State Secretary from the German Federal Ministry of Agriculture and his delegation recently visited Big Dutchman Asia (BD Asia) in Shah Alam, Malaysia. The visit to the subsidiary of the German Big Dutchman Group took place within the context of an official trip to Asia. BD Asia’s management team, namely Brian McCawley, Vice President Sales & Marketing Asia, Kok Fatt Chin, Vice President Purchase & Logistics and Chris Tay, Controller, were present to extend a warm welcome to the guests and provided them with extensive information about products and activities of the world's leading supplier of poultry and pig equipment in Asia Pacific.
The State Secretary was particularly impressed by Big Dutchman's 4,000 m2 logistics centre located just outside Kuala Lumpur. “With the establishment of a regional logistics centre in Malaysia we now have a network of partners & suppliers offering more cost-effective quality solutions and faster responses to the needs of our customers in Asia & Oceania regions. The logistics center was specifically targeted to serve our customers in line with BD’s philosophy of ‚customer first’” Brian McCawley explained to the visitors.
Thailand: Marc Broadbent new General Manager
Big Dutchman strengthens its positon
The Big Dutchman Group announces the appointment of Marc Broadbent as General Manager for Big Dutchman Agriculture (Thailand) Ltd. effective 1 March 2009. Marc who has extensive experience in the pig business and worked most recently as a leading executive in China takes over the management of the Bangkok-based Big Dutchman daughter company. In his new position, the British-born manager will focus on further expanding and strengthening the company’s broad range of modern pig equipment products in Asia.
The Bangkok office is a subsidiary of the Malaysia-based Big Dutchman Asia and has been the distributing arm of it’s modern poultry and pig housing equipment in Thailand since 2002.
Cooperation between Italian consortium and BD AGRO
Energy from olives and lemons
Hot and dry climate in the south, a mountainous region with hardly any farming in the middle and a humid and fertile north: Italy’s climate zones represent a miniature continent. In order to be able to efficiently produce green energy, one of the largest cooperatives in Italy “Consorzio abn” searched for a partner in technology. They found what they were looking for in Vechta-Calveslage, Germany. At the headquarters of “abn” in Perugia, Italy, the managing directors Roberto Leonardi („Consorzio abn“) and Uwe Heider of BD Agro Renewables GmbH (short: BD AGRO) recently signed a contract on the extensive cooperation of both companies.
“In Italy, the requirements on biogas installations are so complex, that they cannot be met with standardized modular solutions”, explains Uwe Heider shortly after the deal was closed. He added: “BD Agro, however, is able to provide systems that are suited for efficient generation of bio energy from waste material, slurry, olive waste, lemon peel and other exotic raw materials.” This is one of the main reasons why “abn” and the German Big Dutchman subsidiary are planning to sell biogas plants to farmers, cooperatives and industrial customers and also erect and operate biogas plants themselves. The first projects are already under way.
While the Italian company profits from the transfer of knowledge and is thus able to invest into a new business area, BD AGRO sees the cooperation as an optimum entry in the Italian market. “abn has broad access to all relevant market segments of the agricultural business — even beyond the Italian border” explains the second managing director of BD AGRO, Jürgen Spille, the strategic advantages of the contract. “We can profit very much from the companies that belong to the abn cooperative, especially in the areas of service, installation and local logistics.”
More than 2500 people from approximately 40 companies are joined under the roof of “abn”. The “Green Technologies” section is a fast-growing business and is treated with absolute priority within the cooperative. One example: this year alone, “abn” tripled their target goal of 1000 solar roofs.
