Miller Magazine Issue: 147 March 2022

65 MILLER / march 2022 NEWS Behlen Mfg. Co, headquartered in Columbus, Nebraska, has signed an agreement with Freeland Industries, Inc. and Freeland Trucking, Inc. (Freeland), located in Portage, Wisconsin, to acquire industrial tank and feeder assets to expand their product offering. Freeland is the 13th acquisi- tion for Behlen since its return to local ownership in 1984. Lynn Van Epps, President of Freeland, and the cur- rent leadership team will continue to manage the daily operations of the Portage, WI manufacturing facility and trucking company crews. Jen Miller, President of Behlen Country, will lead the efforts to integrate Free- land and Behlen through the transition. “Today’s announcement increases our product offering to the farm, ranch, and home markets. Behlen Country brings a strong distribution system that supports many different items being on one truck directly to our customers,” said Jen Miller, President Behlen Country. “This acquisition ex- pands our offerings to meet the ever-growing demand and rapidly changing needs of our customers.” Behlen Mfg. Co., headquartered in Columbus, Nebras- ka, is a world-leading metal manufacturer with diverse business units, including Behlen Country (the nation’s leading manufacturer of livestock equipment), Behlen Building Systems, Trident Building Systems, Behlen In- ternational & Diversified Products (grain systems, strip joining presses, and custom fabrication), Behlen Technol- ogy & Manufacturing, and Hilton International Industries (precision winding machines). BMC Transportation has a fleet of over 100 owner-operators, which delivers Behlen products throughout the U.S. and Canada. Behlen acquires Freeland Industries and Freeland Trucking The Swiss Gericke Group has designed and delivered many standard and customised Big Bag Unloaders BBU for customers all over the world. Difficult products have varied from fine powders, talcum powder, lactose, flour, cocoa, fibres to zinc oxide. What you find when unloading difficult products is that the material can be so compacted within the Big Bag that it cakes, bridges and forms clusters. This can make it extremely hard to fully empty the Big Bag. Using a Big Bag Unloader to discharge dif- ficult products can be tricky to find the right solution, however it can be done. Gericke has many options when looking for the right result for your product, and it can be all configured with their modular BBU system. These options consist of a vi- brating table, bottom massage paddles or side massager. A stretch unit is used for a complete discharge of the bags. Gericke engineers assist to configure the optimised solution for your product and process. The biggest advantages are that Gericke has testing fa- cilities to confirm that you have chosen the right set up for your product and environment. A huge fo- cus lies on save and dust free manipulation as well and that the design meets latest er- gonomic principles. The Swiss Gericke Group has been de- signing and manufacturing equipment and systems for modern bulk material process- es, as well as providing design and con- sultation services, for more than 125 years. Gericke bulk materials processing technol- ogy can be found throughout the world in many sectors including the food, chemical, pharmaceutical, plastics and construction material industries. Gericke’s fully owned group companies employ more than 300 experienced professionals and are locat- ed in Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, The Netherlands, France, USA, Brazil, Singapore, Indone- sia, Malaysia, Thailand and China. Solutions for unloading difficult products with Gericke Big Bag Unloader