May 24, 2018

Evonik celebrates anniversary of Slovakia fermentation site

All roads at Evonik lead to the group's fermentation site in Slovakia when it comes to industrial fermentation processes for new products, the company said.
 

The facility - now known as Evonik Fermas GmbH - is located in Slovenská Ľupča which lies at the foot of the Low Tatras mountains. It was previously under the ownership of Fermas s.r.o, in which the former Degussa AG held a majority of stakes in.

The site, which celebrates its 25th anniversary under its Evonik namesake, has been conducting fermentation production of amino acids lysine and threonine since 1993.

"It is rewarding to see how well Fermas has developed and how important it has become for our business," says Dr. Emmanuel Auer, the head of the Animal Nutrition Business Line of Evonik.
 

All amino acids in Evonik's portfolio that are produced with fermentation methods - whether for animal nutrition or pharmaceutical applications - originally started out at the site.

The Evonik Group has since established large production capacities in other parts of the world for most of these amino acids, and Fermas has specialised in scaling up fermentation processes. All new biotechnological processes move from process development in the laboratory to industrial scale production in Slovenská Ľupča, where the experts for large-scale fermenters are based.

Thanks to the trend toward sustainability, Fermas has continued to see a steady stream of new projects and investments. Over the past years, investments in the double-digit million Euro range have been made into new products, improved technologies, and infrastructure at the site.

Fermas is also an important employer in the region around Slovenská Ľupča.
 

"Our engagement in state-of-the-art industrial biotechnology offers interesting job opportunities for biotechnology experts, laboratory assistants, engineers and many other professions," said Dr. Karl-Ludwig Weber, general manager of Fermas, who holds a doctorate in chemistry.

Dr. Weber's goal is to maintain the company's leading position in microbial production and provide continued support to Evonik in the development of sustainable processes and products.