CASL, Senegal, Africa
CASL, a French agricultural company has set up West Africa’s first end-to-end industrial rice processing facility in Saint Louis, Senegal. The Bühler team that made this happen spanned across Africa, Asia and Europe.
The world might be small but it is still not yet fully discovered by food processing companies. One such unexplored country is Senegal, West Africa. Highly dependent on rice as a staple food, it has a per capita rice consumption of about 72 kg a year – on a par with many Asian countries.
In 2018, Compagnie Agricole de Saint-Louis du Sénégal (CASL) constructed a world class paddy-to-rice processing facility that has integrated hydro-agricultral development, farming, rice processing, trading and marketing. It was developed with the goal of contributing to the self sufficiency of rice supply in West Africa. The facility is spread over 2,700 hectares, with a capability of producing up to 45,000 metric tonnes of white rice per year. The company has been running its operations efficiently to create a robust new market for head rice when the current market was dominated by broken rice.
CASL is an important case study for rice processors. The facility has been constructed from scratch, literally in the middle of nowhere – from the creation of a canal from the Senegal river to setting up the rice processing plant. CASL chose Buhler’s TopLine mill, with a capacity of eight metric tonnes per hour, for its milling section, while the end-to-end scope also includes cleaning, automation and sorting. Despite the language and cultural barriers, the collaboratoin between Buhler’s international teams and CASL’s team in Senegal and France was smooth and highly efficient. Bühler’s global presence has allowed the successful reach and execution of this project in a region where no other food processing company has been set up so far.
One of today’s key industry requirements is the end-to-end delivery of solutions. Despite the challenging conditions in setting up the plant, it was imperative for CASL to get the best output in terms of head rice so as to create demand for a new product in the market. The company was not only competing with the major rice brands but was also looking to create demand for head rice in a market where the traditional preference is for broken rice. Bühler was able to offer end-to- end rice processing solutions to simplify the execution process and deliver the best head rice output. This removes the need for multiple contractors, which typically leads to a higher cost and execution time. With its global presence, Bühler is able to offer holistic solutions anywhere across the world. At the same time, Bühler is also able customize its solutions so to cater to precise region-specific requirements.
I chose Bühler for the ability to execute projects in a short duration, deliver best quality and realize long-term profitability
Bertrand Nicholas, General Manager, CASL
Gupfenstrasse 5
Uzwil
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Switzerland
