Port of Hamburg Magazin 03 - Hafen Hamburg

100.
The Great Jubilee Special
T
oday, ADM Hamburg Stock
Corporation is the Europe’s
biggest oil mill. However, the
company had to come a long and
changeful way since then. Founded
prior to the World War I in the east
of the German Empire, the company
was devastated, particularly after the
end of World War II. Then, the un -
stoppable rise of the production,
which can be credited to Europe,
followed with cooking oil for food,
crushing for the food and feed industry
and environmentally friendly
biofuels.
In 1910, the first cooking oil was produced
in the mill, founded by Dr.
Hellmut Töpffer in Stettin-Zülchow.
Six years later, the second and at the
time still independent arm of the
company, the Hansa-Mühle GmbH
emerged at today’s location in
Neuhof in the Port of Hamburg.
After the war, the restart of the Stettinbased
oil extracting plant in Ham -
burg’s district Veddel followed in
1948. Already in the first year,
4.500 tons of beechnuts, rape and
corn maize were processed with
machines that were partly recovered
from Stettin. In 1965, the integration
of the company with the Hansa-
Mühle to become Oil Mill Hamburg
AG finally followed at the location
Neuhof. At the time, palm kernels,
copra, rape, sunflower seeds, corn
maize and soybeans were processed.
The company experienced its advancement
to Europe’s biggest oil mill
finally through the globally operating
food company Archer Daniels
Midland, who acquired the majority
of the mill in 1990 and gradually
expanded its capacities. Thus, in
1995 for instance, the biodiesel production
started at the location in
Leer. Since 2001, biodiesel is also
produced at the location in
Hamburg, Germany’s biggest biodiesel
production plant.
Today, under the roof of ADM Hamburg
Stock Corporation, primarily cooking
oils for foodstuff as well as feedstuff
for the processing industry is being
produced. Exclusively soybeans,
palmoil and rapeseed are processed.
The concern employs around 570
people in the Hanseatic city and
additional 43 employees at the locations
Leer, Rostock and Magdeburg.
”Without any doubts, the oil mill in
Hamburg made industrial history.
Moreover, we were always one of
the largest industrial employers in
the Hanseatic city and this should
stay like this in the future,” Dr. Kai-
Uwe Ostheim, speaker of the managing
board of the ADM Hamburg
Stock Corporation said on the occasion
of the company’s anniversary.
The clear objective of the company
is to expand the location Hamburg
in the future.
The Hamburg-based research and
development department ought to
help. “We expect a similar consumer
behavior and even healthier oils and
fats over the coming years. Our
modern research and development
center in Hamburg-Harburg will
help us to meet these requirements,”
Ostheim said.
The ADM Hamburg Stock Corporation
receives a lot of support also as part
of the global ADM. The integration
into the ADM concern with its head
office in the U.S. also helps to recognize
trends in the food and feed
industry as well as in the area
increasing raw materials and turn
these into trend-setting products.
”Germany is an important market
for the ADM concern,” European
head Brent Fenton said.
Among other things, this company policy
is reflected in the two takeovers in
the past two years. Thus, ADM
acquired a rape-seed workmanship
in 2008 in the Bavarian city
Straubing as well as the Schokinag
AG in Mannheim, one of Europe’s
leading chocolate manufactures in
the previous year. “We hope that we
will be able to make a similar successful
history in the coming years
with our German subsidiaries, just
as we were able with the ADM
Hamburg Stock Corporation. We
are proud of our employees in
Germany whose first class work
contributes to good results in the
local market,” Brent Fenton said.
Foto: HHM/Michael Lindner
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