KVANUM, SWEDEN — While its roots are in grain drying, Swedish company Tornum has grown to become one of Europe’s leading suppliers of complete grain management systems.

Kvanum, Sweden-based Tornum has nearly 60 years of experience manufacturing grain dryers. Today, the company is a turnkey supplier that combines decades of know-how with a creative approach to problem solving and innovation.

In 1965, Tornum’s founder introduced the first generation of grain dryers to the marketplace. Back then, the brand name was Svegma, and more than two decades later he founded the company that’s now called Tornum.

Since that day, the company has constantly been developing products to meet the needs and expectations of agricultural and industrial customers throughout the world. Tornum has become one of Europe’s leading suppliers of complete grain management systems.

The company has been owned since 2004 by Volati, a Swedish industrial group.

“Tornum was actually Volati’s first acquisition, and since then, Volati has made 40 additional acquisitions,” said Nicklas Margård, chief executive officer of the Tornum Group.

The rationale for the investment was the great need for technological investment in response to growth in the marketplace, he said.

“However, it was also important from the outset for the company to grow in a controlled manner, step by step,” Margård said. “The first step led to Poland, and when that proved to be successful, it was time to take on more markets, one at a time.”

The company wanted to be able to offer local service and speak the language.

“We have more and more direct distributors, and in a majority of the countries, we’ve ensured that we have a strong presence and representation,” he said. “This is related to the fact that the company is based on Swedish culture and management. We’re strong believers in local entrepreneurship: that decisions be made close to the customers. It’s one of our strengths that we’re very proud of.”

Grain dryers always have been the “lifeblood” of the business and continue to play that role even though Tornum is now a turnkey supplier of grain management systems.

Grain dryers always have been the “lifeblood” of the business and continue to play that role even though Tornum is now a turnkey supplier of grain management systems. Grain dryers remain a critical part of any agricultural facility.

“Especially now, when companies are intently focused on finding energy-efficient solutions for their businesses,” Margård said, citing the Intelligent Dryer Control (IDC) system as one of the milestones in the development of the company’s product line.

“With IDC, the drying process can be optimized in a whole new way,” he said. “An unbelievable amount of time can be saved when you’re able to cut back on the amount of manual monitoring whilst simultaneously safeguarding product quality, with an exact level of drying for the water content required. However, plenty of things have also happened on the technological front in recent years.

“An example is Tornum Rex, which we consider the next generation in grain dryers. It’s based on a concept that provides, among other things, mild but effective drying and unique moisture control.”

Tornum has expanded its operations into other areas, such as animal feed, foodstuffs, and biomass. Over the past five or six years, it has made a number of strategic acquisitions to significantly expand the product line.

“One of the acquisitions was JPT, which gave us a strong market presence in Finland,” Margård said. “In addition, it allowed us to supplement our product line with their highly regarded industrial applications and gain a stronger foothold in the animal feed market.”

Spanish Apisa is another acquisition; a company Tornum knew from before and were able to get good contacts with thanks to JPT.

“It’s an old family business with a significant presence, among other things, in grain and rice, which realized that they didn’t have a new generation to take over,” Margård said. “We now have a solid base in Spain with nearly 40 employees who are very knowledgeable about the market.”

Yet another acquisition was the Finnish company Terästorni, which specializes in pulp production. This helped to expand the product line while providing a number of valuable customer contacts.

Margård, who has worked with Tornum for about 18 years, said the various acquisitions have provided customers with added value.

“First off, it provides us with the platform in the respective countries that we feel is so important in order to optimally understand the market needs and be able to provide the best service imaginable,” he said. “However, even in other markets, customers will benefit from the acquisition since it increases our capacity and the breadth of our product line. Our role as a turnkey supplier becomes even clearer.”

He said the company will continue to make significant investments in technological development, among other things, by striving to introduce even better energy efficiency solutions.