Vemag Maschinenbau GmbH is one of the leading machine manufacturers for the filling, portioning, dividing, shaping and depositing of pasty foods, doughs and masses. The portfolio ranges from solutions for small businesses to highly industrialized applications and modular production lines. The decisive success factor is the careful, economical handling of raw materials and the efficient flexibility for individual customer needs.

By Dr. Bernhard Reichenbach

For 75 years, Vemag Maschinenbau GmbH, based in Verden/Germany, has been developing and producing machine systems for the food industry and the small scale segment. With its solutions focused on customer needs in the area of filling, portioning, forming and depositing of food products, the company has meanwhile advanced to position 25 in the top rankings of German medium-sized businesses. It was founded in Verden in 1944 – in the penultimate year of the war turmoil – as Holz- und Gerätebaugesellschaft mbH, and, in 1950, rebranded into Vemag Verdener Maschinen- und Apparatebau GmbH.

From modest beginnings, the manufacturer of diverse investment and consumable products, such as church clocks and honey separators, evolved into an innovation leader in portioning technology and a global player. Today, Vemag has an export share of about 85 % and employs more than 650 people.

The key role to the success was the development of the continuous portioning machine for industrial and small businesses, in order to fill and transport dough masses and
sausage emulsions reliably and evenly. Another milestone for the company was the innovation of the double screw technology, a unique selling point of the company until today.

The double screw feed system handles the filling material with utmost care, optimizing the total cost of the process thanks to the stability of this proven technology. Different types of double screws, but alter-natively also rotary vane pumps, serve as core components for just one main purpose: the combination of a portioning machine and a match-
ing attachment should meet the customers’ requirements and help their applications to become suc-cessful.

The variety of modular combinations along with individually customized attachments allow filling and portioning with an almost unlimited range of applications in the food processing sector, as well as in other branches. Examples are the filling of pet food, tobacco or pharmaceutical products and even, in the civil sector, of explosives for mining.

Thanks to continuous customer orientation and with the help of a constantly growing modular system, the original focus on ever growing traditional small scale businesses was rapidly expanded to industrial applications, in order to better meet the growing needs of the food industry and match the increasing company sizes. Vemag has meanwhile extended its portfolio of portioning machines by complete technical solutions for numerous applications, service programmes and consulting to meet all-embracing customer needs. It now offers total solutions in the areas of portioning, filling, forming, depositing and loading of liquid to pasty masses.

Thanks to technical innovation as well as flexible, customized appli-cation possibilities, the company’s success at an international level was manifested at an early stage. International presence through sales and service companies as well as agencies around the globe was successfully established with the aim of offering customers throughout the world instant service support. Today, Vemag is represented in more than 80 countries.

The strength of the continuously growing company is keeping an eye on the needs of its customers at all times. This includes individual con-sultancy, technological support, knowledge transfers and training possibilities, also on site. Including customer experience and needs in the new and further development of machines and applications, contributes to the company’s success.

„We are always on-site at our customers, listening carefully, which individual needs are there to meet – regarding machines as well as service,” emphasizes Vemag CEO Dr Niclas Rathmann. “Despite the growth of the company and all challenges that come along with that, we have to sharpen our senses and stay focused on our core task: to offer the right solutions at the right time under minimized risks for our customers. To achieve this, we need to be faster, more flexible and more attentive than even smaller companies are. Therefore, we aspire to form our organization in a way that every company member feels the common commitment: to move and inspire our customers and achieve something special for them.”

Vemag also demonstrates customer proximity at trade fairs such as the Südback in Stuttgart/Germany, where the company was recently presenting various new and further developments. One example is the Robot500 dough divider in combination with the ASV811 cut-off device, which form a so-called “dream team” for bakery and confectionery production. In addition to all fine doughs, the ingenious system also processes pasty masses such as snack doughs, fillings, fruit and protein masses and the like.

The compact device combination for dividing and depositing of doughs and masses offers many advantages for flexible handling. Particularly noteworthy is the weight accuracy with which the system divides and thus allows the exact portioning of even small pastry or confectionery products. At the heart of this is the Vemag double screw technology, which ensures gentle product feeding and high weight accuracy for every product.

An ideal addition to the Robot500 is the FST883 filling flow divider. It portions masses with high weight accuracy and flexibility. Designed as a front attachment for Vemag dough portioners, the flow divider is mounted directly on the machine outlet. The connection to the further processing stage is done via hoses or pipes. The system can be individually adapted to any desired application situation. Both the number of outlets and the shape of the final product can be freely chosen. The separation is done by knife and by means of a wire, depending on the customer’s request and the viscosity of the product.