Tornum AB

Tailor-made solutions

Tornum AB has been on the rise for the past ten years, making a name for itself as a prominent player in the grain handling industry. The Sweden-based business established its first subsidiary outside of Europe in Thailand, in 2017

For Tornum AB, there were plenty of reasons to be cheerful in 2017.The Swedish supplier of solutions for the grain and farming industries enjoyed one of its best years in business, reporting growth that has hardly been achieved before. This continued the trend of a steady rise in turnover that started in 2005. Since then, turnover has grown by 400 per cent and profit margins have followed the same path.

Headquartered in the town of Kvänum,Tornum was formally established in 1989. However, the technology behind its trademark grain dryers dates back to 1965, when the company’s founder launched the first generation of dryers into the international market under the Svegma brand name. Over the years,Tornum has constantly added to its products and services, and today, it is recognised as one of the world’s leading suppliers to the agricultural and grain handling industries. The business has the advantage of operating from a rural town and many of the employees have a background in the grain industry, some of them being part-time farmers, thus contributing valuable personal experience to the company’s product development exploits.

Tornum takes pride in offering consultancy and project design services with a view to providing holistic system solutions, rather than simply isolated products. It has built upon its knowledge by constantly acquiring new competences in the processes of cleaning, aspiration, storage, and transportation of grain.This has led to it taking on projects in numerous countries across Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Baltic region.

Every project Tornum starts work on, begins with a careful needs analysis, aiming to understand exactly what the client wants.The company then devises a proposal for a unique and totally optimised facility. One of the most important factors that inform the construction decisions, is the location of the dryer.The company aims to create attractive exteriors that preserve the experience of a farm, while optimising the flow of the facility as a whole. Naturally, it also takes into consideration the need to minimise safety issues and risks, so it generally avoids crossing traffic flow within the facilities.

Another core strength of the business during a project, lies in the acumen of Tornum’s project managers.The company goes to great lengths to reassure its clients that they can rely on their project manager at every stage of the venture.The manager takes the responsibility to synchronise work scheduling and materials supply, but also tackles administrative issues and co-ordinates local regulations and laws, to ensure the smooth running of any project.

Having completed various projects in Latvia, Romania, Hungary, and Russia, the most substantial programme Tornum finalised recently, was the development and installation of a new drying and storage plant for the Ukrainian company Rentcom LLC.The latter processes soybeans into soybean oil and soybean meal for animal feed purposes, and its new facility will have a final capacity of 90,000 tonnes. As part of the project,Tornum will supply the site with two receiving pits for trucks, a new dryer equipped with an IDC (intelligent dryer control) system, an industrial cleaning machine, buffer silos for wet grain, a storage capacity of 30,000 tonnes, heavy duty transport equipment, bulk loading bins, and a fully-computerised control system.

Although Tornum describes the dryer as the heart of a grain elevator, the manufacturer has created a much wider range of products, covering the entire grain process – from intake to unloading. Besides dryers, the company’s solutions involve grain storage facilities, heat sources, various pieces of transport equipment, conditioning and cooling machinery, intake pits, monitoring systems, cleaning machines, dust separators, as well as building and steel constructions.

Featuring closely spaced laterals, smooth interior surfaces, flexible modular systems, and innovations that reduce energy consumption, the highly sought-after grain dryers represent a mainstay for the industry. But in order to turn itself into a one-stop shop,Tornum consistently enriches its catalogue. Early this year, it introduced a new series of grain pipes and accessories, also including several models of valves – motorised, manual, manual with indicator, and pneumatic.

Featuring closely spaced laterals, smooth interior surfaces, flexible modular systems, and innovations that reduce energy consumption, the highly sought-after grain dryers represent a mainstay for the industry. But in order to turn itself into a one-stop shop,Tornum consistently enriches its catalogue. Early this year, it introduced a new series of grain pipes and accessories, also including several models of valves – motorised, manual, manual with indicator, and pneumatic.

Remarkably, in 2017,Tornum established its first subsidiary outside of Europe. In February, it began trading in Thailand to make the most of the increased interest in grain handling services in that part of the world.The immediate goal for the new entity was to convert batch drying systems into continuous controlled systems, ensuring higher product quality and higher efficiency for clients, whilst maintaining low total cost of ownership.With the business strengthening, its ambition is to then include the design of complete turnkey grain handling and storage facilities to its offering in the future.

In another strategically important move last year,Tornum acquired fellow Swedish company Silokonsult – a supplier of machinery and planning for the grain and milling industries.The acquisition is expected to forge the expertise of Tornum, as new products and skills that have historically been beyond its core strengths have now been added to its capabilities.

The good news for Tornum kept coming at the beginning of 2018.The company was commissioned by COMVEX to deliver a new, large heat recovery HR dryer for a new grain terminal built in Constanta, Romania. If we were to judge by the latest developments at the business, it could be expected that many more high-profile orders are to arrive at Tornum’s offices in the years to come.

Tornum AB
Products: Dryers, storage, heat sources, transport equipment as well as turn-key plants for the grain handling industry