Production history of margarines for food industry
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Rusagro Maslo is a significant part of Rusagro Group, handling its oil&fats business and occupying a leading position at the Russian oil&fats market. Industry leadership became possible thanks to the wealth of experience, expertise and professional quality of the company staff. Our unique knowledge is the foundation of tomorrow’s successful development strategy. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say they now help shape the Russian oil&fats industry.

SOLPRO, the first-ever Russian brand of margarines and fats intended for bakery, confectionery and dairy industry, established 16 years ago to keep and develop traditions of a 80-year-old production facility.

 

How it started. Moscow.

There’s a great history of victories and overcoming challenges behind the saying, “We know everything about fats and margarines”. It starts in 1935. That year, the first hydrogenation plant in the USSR was launched (renamed to Moscow Fat Integrated Works in 1965). It manufactured food-grade shortening, hydrogenated solid fat supplied to margarine factories.

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Entrance to Moscow Fat Integrated Works
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Прием готовой продукции на склад комбината
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Анастас Микоян на открытии комбината в Москве
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Сотрудники комбината, Москва, 1936 год

People’s Commissar of Food Industry Anastas Mikoyan oversaw the works construction personally. The initial daily production capacity of the works was 50 tons of shortening, with 306 people on payroll.

By 1940, the gas workshop was commissioned, and the production capacity went up three times. Additionally, the works started producing hydrogenated fat to be processed at food concentrate, confectionery and bakery factories. A shop producing emulsifier for margarine industry, the very first in the country, was also put into operation.

In 1941-1945 the works was repurposed to produce high quality fat for the army, the navy and the civilian population. It had the only hydrogen production shop in Moscow. Hydrogen was used for oil hydrogenation. During the war, they started using it to inflate aerostats that obscured the focal points in Moscow’s landscape, such as the Kremlin, Maly Theater and Lenin Library, to make them invisible to German aircraft raiding the city. The workers dragged the aerostats by hand from Tekstilshchiki district, where the plant was located, to the city center.
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Female workers dragging aerostats from Graivoronovo plant (now Tekstilshchiki) to the center of Moscow to protect it. 1942
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Balloons over Moscow, 1942
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Memorial to the workers who perished in the Great Patriotic War. Moscow, 2014
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Works staff. Moscow, 1953
1945
Rebuilding works’ production capacities and workshops repair.
1978
The integrated works got a margarine production facility, capacity 40,000 tons/year.
1982
The first filling margarine production line in the USSR was put into operation. Capacity: 18.5 tons of finished product per year.
History continues. Saratov

The decision to build a fat integrated works in Saratov was made the next year after the war ended. The construction lasted seven years; workforce shortages made oil refining and margarine production professionals change jobs and join the construction.

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Saratov factory construction, 1947

In 1953, the first stage of construction was completed and launched into operation: hydrogenation and gas facilities, boiler and oil drain stations.

Setting up production, preparing chemicals in the laboratory, connecting equipment: all of this had to be done from scratch by people without any relevant experience, from managers and engineers to equipment operators. Engineers and technicians studied, passed exams and worked together. Since then, out tradition is our ever-expanding expertise.

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Mechanized fat filling, 1964
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Integrated work process control board, 1964
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Stearin plant laboratory, 1965

Researchers from Fats Institute and Main Margarine Department helped with their advice and comments. Finally, in October 1952, they successfully overcame the challenge of getting quality hydrogen out of natural gas! Month from month, the staff was getting stronger and more experienced, branching out into the more sophisticated areas of production. That’s how our approach to our job developed.

It’s our tradition to seek innovation, strive toward greater production quality and mobilize to solve new issues. Our modernization activity is a testament to that. Over 350 modernization projects have been implemented in the Soviet times after the plant launch.

 

New times

Saratov factory today is Russia’s largest producer of margarines and fats for food industry and the main site implementing corporate innovation projects.

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Factory facilities, 2017
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One of the factory workshops, 2018

In 2007, we launched the only fat enzyme interesterification unit in Russia (the green technologies).

In 2011-2013, the plant got a process overhaul, with high efficiency multi-purpose margarine and fat production line made by Gerstenberg Schroeder (Germany-Denmark) being installed and the launch of fat and oil bleaching and deodorization facility.

The plant is in line with the highest quality standards; its workshops are equipped with cutting-edge machinery, laboratories, information and applied technology center: everything to supply the food industry with the highest quality product. GOST ISO 9001–2011 international quality management standard and FSSC 22000 food product safety management system are in operation. In 2016, we got a McDonald’s supplier license and started supplying our products to that global fast food chain.

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Pouring margarine into container, 2018

In 2018, after the new TR CU regulation was adopted, limiting the trans isomers content in foods, the plant updated its recipes and process technologies. In 2020, we launched the CLEAN&FREE for palm oil free products. The properties of that line are the same as in ordinary margarines. They are produced through chemical interesterification, guaranteeing the desired consumer qualities and the required trans isomer content.

Saratov factory keeps developing. In 2021, a cutting edge PET bottle filling line was installed. The modern machinery will help raise the output of highly demanded products: frying mixes and high oleic oil (HOO).

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Налив фритюрной смеси на новой линии. Саратов, 2021 год
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Пост управления процессами рафинации, 2019 год
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Пост управления процессами рафинации, 2019 год
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Цех дезодорации
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Прикладной центр СЖК
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Лаборатория инновационного центра, 2021 год
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Ask the technologist
Анна Ванчикова,
Технолог сопровождения
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