Bühler Group established a joint venture with IMDHER S.A. de C.V., a leading player in the animal nutrition market in Mexico, that will drive process efficiency, quality, and sustainability in the feed industry. The new company, called IMDHER Bühler, will offer Bühler’s core machines as well as IMDHER’s expertise to IMDHER’s customers, providing solutions that will help them improve the capacity and efficiency of their operations.
IMDHER brings four decades of experience building plants to produce animal feed, including pet food and aquafeed. The family-owned business is a turnkey supplier to the Mexican feed market, with a 20% market share. Bühler is buying a minority stake of 49% in the joint venture. The new company, IMDHER Bühler, will be managed by IMDHER general manager, Luis Díaz.
Expertise in sustainable growth
“We believe that the growth in meat consumption can be achieved while reducing environmental impact. By using the latest and most efficient technologies to reduce waste and energy consumption and contribute to animal welfare, we provide our support toward meeting the nutritional needs of millions of people in a more sustainable way. With IMDHER, we have a perfect partner to serve the important and growing Mexican market with more efficient solutions and optimize an extensive installed technology base,” said Johannes Wick, CEO of Bühler’s Grains & Food business.
IMDHER is one of the best-recognized players in the Mexican animal feed market, specializing in the integral design, manufacture, assembly, construction, and start-up of turnkey plants for the production of nutritious feed for animal consumption for various species. The company has built over 100 feed plants in Mexico and has the experience and capacity to carry out works of high complexity while customizing to the specific needs of its customers.
Bühler offers process solutions and services to transform a wide range of feed ingredients to safe, healthy, and nutritious animal feeds at the highest yields with animal welfare and feed conversion rate in mind. It brings the technology for efficient and hygienic animal feed processing installations, as well as over 150 years of sound processing expertise, which also allow retrofits and improvements on the installed base.
“The joint venture with Bühler represents an opportunity for us to add Bühler’s technology and solutions to our existing assets and therefore to expand the offering to our customers in Mexico’s vibrant and expanding market,” said Díaz.
Bühler’s expertise in feed solutions will help IMDHER’s customers produce top-quality feed while making more economical use of their raw materials and energy, thus improving the CO2 footprint of operations. This is in line with Bühler’s target to have solutions ready to multiply that reduce energy, waste, and water in customers’ value chains in all the markets it addresses by 50% by 2025.
A proven partnership
“The participation has come about as a result of our talks with IMDHER over several years. Our first joint projects are already underway and working well. We will not only install Bühler core machines but also enable IMDHER’s existing installed base to be connected to Bühler Insights, our central platform for connected products and services. This will improve the efficiency of IMDHER plants, and reduce energy consumption and waste,” said Olivia Enriquez, director general, Bühler Mexico.
Bühler has been present in Mexico since 1959. Today it has a local and dedicated team of 115 employees providing services to customers across the region, as well as Cuba and Central America. Mexico is the sixth biggest producer of animal feed in the world, and is particularly strong in broiler and layer chickens, pigs, and dairy. In addition, the pet and aqua feed markets are currently growing fast.
“With this equity stake, we will be able to combine IMDHER’s and Bühler’s expertise to provide the dynamic animal nutrition market in Mexico with solutions that help them meet their process, efficiency, and sustainability targets. We look forward to working with Luis Díaz and his team and leveraging their skills and experience and ours in this fast-growing market,” said Johannes Wick.
