Quality cooking oil from Hungary Bunge

Vénusz, one of the most renowned brand names in Hungary, belongs to Bunge Zrt, a large cooking oil and (through a subsidiary) a margarine producing company, which operates in Hungary as part of the global Bunge Limited group. Vénusz sunflower cooking oil has been present in the Hungarian market since 1952 and served generations of housewives. Throughout its long history the company’s main focus has always been on quality and major investments have been made regularly to meet the changing market needs. Edina Beale reports.

QUALITY COOKING OIL FROM HUNGARY

The predecessor of Bunge Zrt was a state owned Vegetable oil and Detergent Manufacturing Company which was established in 1964 as a joint venture of many small vegetable oil factories in Hungary. At that time the company covered many segments including the manufacturing of vegetable oil based food and margarine, protein forage, soap, detergent and cleaning products, candles and other chemicals, but by the 70–80s the most dynamically developing sector was the vegetable oil manufacturing.

In 1991 the company changed to a public limited company, and most of its shares were acquired by Cereol Holding, an oilseed processing company that had significant market positions in western Europe. The name of the company changed to Cereol Növényolajipari Rt Magyarország and it operated as part of the Eridania Béghin-Say Agrarian Group, which owned majority shares of many sugar factories in Hungary. Cereol focused on processing sunflower and rapeseed oil as well as producing and packaging cooking oil. Products included crude vegetable cooking oil, packaged cooking oil, forage sleet and cooking lecithin.

After privatisation the company underwent a major technological development with the focus on all areas of the manufacturing process and the packaging. In 1993–94 a modern cooking oil refinery was established and a 1 litre PET base packaging unit was built in Martfű; as a result of this development, the company has become one of the most modern manufacturing firms in terms of capacity and quality in Europe. This created new opportunities for the firm to serve the domestic and export markets to the highest standard. Global support

The American Bunge Limited, one of the biggest oilseed processing companies in the world, acquired Cereol in 2003, and since then the company has been operating in Hungary under the name of Bunge Zrt. Besides Europe, Bunge Limited is also active in the USA, Canada, South America and in Asia.

In 2008 Bunge made a significant investment to improve the facilities and increase capacities in the Martfű factory. The current processing capacities are suitable to satisfy the complete domestic market demand for cooking oil. In order to guarantee excellent quality, Bunge introduced the IFS quality assurance system into its operations. The company has always been committed to protecting the environment and complies with the requirements of the ISO 14001: 2004 Environmental System.

Bunge acquired the margarine producing Royal Brinkers Hungary Kft in 2010. This subsidiary is now called Natura Margarin Kft and produces private label products as well as low price margarine products in the factory located in Tatabánya, south-west Budapest. The company also offers the well-known Bords Eve margarine in the premium category and in September 2011 extended its portfolio with the Vénusz margarine family range.

Innovative solutions

As one of the leading innovators of the Bunge group, Bunge Zrt has always put great emphasis on healthy and environmentally friendly developments. This commitment is also evident in the design of its packaging solutions.

Codema

BUNGE has been a very important customer for Codema, especially since choosing us as a preferred supplier of Sunflower Seed Decorticators.

Most recently, Codema supplied the decorticators for BUNGE plants in Buzau Romania, Bordeaux France (partial BUNGE), Martfu Hungary and BUNGE Ukraine (not started up yet).

I think BUNGE appreciates that our machines have durability and that Codema is always willing to support BUNGE with prompt service, spare parts, and even to implement some Bunge design preferences for future machines. The minimal creation of fines by Codema Decorticators helps BUNGE maintain high yields.

HF

Quality and trust in each other’s competence are keys to a successful partnership.

HF is the world market leader for screw presses (formerly known as Krupp-Presses, a synonym for high performance and high quality equipment) but is also considered and world-wide acknowledged as competent technology provider in other fields of oilseed processing, for crude oil refining and animal waste processing (rendering). HF’s business relationship with Bunge’s Martfü plant began more than 35 years ago with the supply of numerous components for all different plant sections. The delivery of the screw press with serial number 2,000 to the Polish Bunge plant in Brzeg has been yet another milestone for the Bunge – HF relationship. Today Bunge operates more than 40 HF screw presses in locations in Austria, Canada, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine.

We are looking forward to strengthen and deepen this outstanding partnership.

“Currently trends in the food industry are more and more towards healthy, natural solutions,” confirms Mrs Ildiko Frikton, brand manager of Bunge Zrt. “Consumers now demand near natural ingredients, humane manufacturing processes and environmentally friendly packaging materials.”

The company’s own development centre, Kővári Katalin Innovation Centre, was founded in 1947 as part of the Vegetable oil and Detergent Company. In 2010 the Innovation Centre was re-established in a new location and now it operates in a business park in Budapest. The laboratories of this centre are equipped with modern laboratory and analytic equipment, tasting room and experiments kitchens that are all used for developing processes. The mission of the Innovation Centre is to provide a national environment for the industry professionals to join their expert knowledge and work together to develop new products, new packaging ideas, new food processing and industrial operations and innovative solutions that will add value for customers. Products such as packaged, bottled and loose cooking oil, soy, sunflower and rapeseed sleet, grains, margarines and vegetable fats are distributed in a number of European countries, as well as in the Middle East and in North Africa.

Bunge Zrt has a strong foundation and now operates with the support of a large international corporation. Meeting customer demands will always have to remain the main priority, as Mrs Frikton says: “Since 1818 Bunge has been one of the leading agribusiness and food manufacturing companies in the world. The activities of Bunge are integrated from the fields to the table. The aim of the company is to improve people’s lives by developing the global agricultural and food industry production chain – helping to produce more crops for farmers, processing and distributing these products efficiently and safely, and creating affordable, excellent quality food products that people can trust to buy and consume with pleasure.” n