AAK: Aarhus company, global supplier and green frontrunner

200,000 tons spread over eight ships. This is the amount of shea kernels that AAK received in port in 2024 and that the company makes for both energy and oil.

Much has happened since the company, founded in 1871 in Aarhus, started producing fodder cakes.

We process vegetable oils. The shea kernels are shipped here from Africa, and then we produce shea oil from them. Some of the shea oil is picked up by truck and transported on, but a large part is shipped back by ship,

says Steen Hansen, Site Manager at AAK in Aarhus.

At the Aarhusian factory they also produce palm oil, but shea oil is the largest part of the facilities daily business.

The oils are components that both customers and colleagues elsewhere in the world use as ingredients in their products. And many of the finished products are enjoyed by many of us quite often. The oil is widely used in chocolate.

What we do at our factory in Aarhus is important. Otherwise, we wouldn't be sitting here. AAK has about 25 branches worldwide and we deliver to all the others. If we don't deliver to the others, then no one will be able to produce the finished products. It is only AAK's site in Aarhus that has the role

says Steen Hansen.

When the factory was established in 1871, it was under the name Aarhus Palmekærnefabrik. Later the company was called Aarhus Oliefabrik, and in the post-war period “Oliemøllen”, as it was popularly called, accounted for 10 percent of Denmark's exports.

AAK has been an important company at the port of Aarhus for more than 150 years, but this does not mean that the company feels old-fashioned to work in.

You can see that the management style and the way the factory is run keeps up with the times. If you have good ideas, you always get to try to adjust and change things. Everyone is involved in the decisions.

says Theis Trane Rasmussen, process operator at AAK.

The shea kernels have to go through a tortuous process before the oil is ready to move on from the plant. And from a control room in the old buildings at the port, Theis Trane Rasmussen sits and monitors that everything is as it should be.

The company is a well-oiled machine in which all the cogs play together.

The best part is the way we work in teams. It provides a good environment. We are a unified company here at the port of Aarhus. The administration and production are unified here. We often need to help each other.

says the process operator.

The shea kernels are made up of approximately 50 percent oil. The remaining 50 percent is left as a kind of flour.

This shea flour was for many years sold as fuel to other companies, which have infused a bit of it at a time into their boilers. But it is not an attractive fuel, and AAK found it difficult to allocate.

Instead, they embarked on an ambitious project. AAK would make their own bioboiler where the residue could be burned off and produce energy for the plant.

We started on the project in 2020. We were supposed to learn a lot about shea flour as fuel,

says Henrik Wessmann.

He is the Engineering Manager at AAK in Aarhus and the project manager on the bioboiler project.

Early in the project, AAK allied itself with Vyncke, which is a Belgian company with extensive experience in getting energy out of difficult fuels. And then it took off.

In 2021, some soil was removed and a large concrete slab was cast. At one time, about 100 people worked at the same time on the construction site. But there was still some way to go before one was ready to build the bioboiler.

We found a company in Greece where we could test it off. So we took 300 bigbags and filled them with shea flour, and then we went down there to do a test. And it was a good experience,

says Henrik Wessmann.

Already later in 2021, the installation of the boiler itself began, and around Christmas time in 2023 AAK was ready to test run it. With great success.

Today, a year later, the bioboiler covers the energy consumption of the factory. 95 percent of the fuel is shea flour, and it is with some pride in his voice when Henrik Wessmann talks about the project.

For us, it is groundbreaking that we have actually found something to use the shea flour for that we ourselves benefit from. No one told us that we had to do it. It's ourselves who have sort of stuck our heads into the lion's den and said we wanted this,

says the project manager and continues:

There was a lot to work on, but it was all worth it. As a company, you have a responsibility, and it's a really good feeling to have succeeded with such a green project like this.

AAK, as the company has been called since 2014, stands for AarhusKarlshamn. And although AAK has 25 branches worldwide, the city name is part of the company's DNA.

Just like the company is in many ways part of the city's.

We live in symbiosis with the rest of Aarhus. When we need building permits or similar, we need Aarhus, and in the same way we are contributing to jobs and now helping them to green transition with our new bioboiler. I think we have a good symbiosis with Aarhus Municipality,

says Steen Hansen.

But it's not just Aarhus that gets the benefits from the company's products.

In 2024, AAK shipped 100,000 tons, divided by both ships and trucks, into Denmark or abroad.

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