City Group, Dhaka/Bangladesh
City Group is one of the leading food conglomerates in Bangladesh. Founded 53 years ago, it now employs more than 25,000 people across 25 separate businesses. Bühler’s partnership with City Group dates back three decades, and has seen the installation of a number of mills, such as flour, rice, pulses, and an oil seed crushing plant. By far the most significant project, however, has been the vast Rupshi Mill on the banks of the Shitalakshya River, 30km from Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka.
The 5,000-ton flour mill at Rupshi is the largest private-sector facility of its kind in South Asia, with eight 625-ton milling lines. As the facility also handles daily shipments in excess of 20,000 tons of corn, soybean, rapeseed, lentils, yellow peas and wheat, the storage needs are immense. Bühler installed silos with an extraordinary capacity of 305,000 tons. The importance of the project, however, extends beyond efficiency to the food security of the nation itself. Bangladesh is a country dependent on agriculture, but has traditionally suffered significant post-harvest losses for its grains through poor storage practices, pests and inefficient infrastructure and technology.
"In Bangladesh, we face significant challenges with post-harvest losses for grains, which are estimated at around 10–15% of total production. In a country that heavily relies on agriculture, these careless post-harvest losses mean missed opportunities to feed millions of people."
Shampa Rahman,
Director, City Group
Bühler’s challenge was to fit as many silos as possible into a land area of less than 22,000 square meters. In the end, 39 silos were constructed – all fully equipped with Bühler Insights for faultless product and ambient temperature monitoring. The facility’s various production plants have been connected with a highly efficient conveying network that spans 3,600m in length and has a capacity of 600 tons per hour.
The project’s success was thanks to the seamless collaboration between Bühler headquarters, its expert local Dhaka team, and the customer – “leveraging Swiss expertise and prompt local support to ensure customer success”, says Bühler’s Moshfeq Rafiq, Managing Director of Bangladesh.
"When we set up the Rupshi Mill, our main goal was to speed up production. Bühler was agile in meeting our needs by completing the first phase early. We are highly impressed with Bühler's prompt delivery of large-scale solutions, and deeply value their dedication in regular check-ins and monitoring from Europe to ensure everything runs smoothly."
Md. Kamruzzaman,
Deputy GM, City Group
Gupfenstrasse 5
Uzwil
9240
Switzerland
