Bettina Fliesser, Sales Manager Bioplastics, AGRANA

In each issue of the Bioplastics Bulletin, we present 5 facts about a member of European Bioplastics. In this issue, Bettina Fliesser, Sales Manager Bioplastics at AGRANA, shares some information about the Austrian producer of starch and starch-based bioplastics.

5 facts about AGRANA Starch, Gmuend, Austria

  1. AGRANA is an internationally oriented Austrian company, which adds value to agricultural commodities to produce a wide range of industrial products for the processing sector. With around 8,600 personnel based at 53 production facilities in its three business segments, Sugar, Starch and Fruit, AGRANA supplies local producers and large international players, particularly those in the food processing industry. In the Sugar segment, AGRANA supplies both industrial and end customers with sugar products under the Wiener Zucker brand.
  2. AGRANA’s Starch segment is a specialist in the processing and refining of top-quality agricultural raw materials such as corn, wheat and potatoes to create a variety of different, highly refined starch products. The diverse properties of starch find use in the food industry as well as in technical areas such as construction chemistry, paper and cardboard manufacturing, textile, adhesive as well as the plastics industry.
  3. To ensure its long term and sustainable success in a highly competitive market environment, it is AGRANA’s strategic goal to set itself apart from its competitors via continual technological optimisation and product innovations. AGRANA strives to optimise its production technologies, also in regards to its sustainability criteria, and is furthermore collaborating with its clients to develop recipes, special products, and new uses for existing products.
  4. As a part of the starch product portfolio, AGRANA offers the AMITROPLAST product line, consisting of superior quality thermoplastic starch (TPS). The AMITROPLAST product line provides specially designed grades to meet the application specific requirements of injection moulding, extrusion and film blowing. AGRANA’s TPS products are used with an average quantity of 50% in compound formulations, enabling an exceptionally high amount of bio-based content in the final product. AMITROPLAST products, as well as the starch they are based on, are 100% produced in Austria.
  5. Sustainability is an integral element of AGRANA’s corporate philosophy, beginning long before the industrial processing of agricultural raw materials, namely during their procurement. As a result of the high level of dependence on agricultural crops, AGRANA has an obligation to protect all natural resources and has therefore created the AGRANA environmental policy, which covers major aspects such as energy use and emissions, water and waste management.