David Blumberg was interview by Africa Agribusiness, detailing the customer history, advancements and current position in the agricultural health and progress in Africa. As another Blumberg Grain Warehouse system is built, Mr. Blumberg spoke with Dave Ramaswamy; an excerpt of the interview follows:
AAM: Do your systems run on a variety of power inputs? Grid power is not always available or reliable, with voltage fluctuations, in these markets.
Blumberg: Good point. When designing our systems, we told our R&D team that they should plan for poor infrastructure as well as harsh climates. The Applied Engineering division designed our units so that a 600-square-meter facility (with 1500 metric tons of storage) can pack up into just one 40-foot cargo container. Our engineers designed our units for fast installation – as little as three days. They designed them for flexible use. Our units are modular when it comes to adding capacity and are upgradable when it comes to adding our technology options.
Speaking to your point about energy – it was clear that the units would have to be able to handle different kinds of energy supply. So we offer solar power, wind power, etc. as a supplementary power source for these systems. Our Grain Vault can run completely on solar power.
AAM: Is it solar PV? How exactly does it work? How do you handle power failure and redundancy?
Blumberg: That's correct, Solar PV on top of the warehouse roof. You can get quite a bit of power out of those panels. What we've done is leverage technologies on the inside of our warehouse that are energy-efficient. The only issue is the cold storage component for which the power needs are quite high. Our cold storage could run on 100 percent solar power, but it then becomes inefficient from an economic perspective.
For our refrigerated storage, what we suggest to our clients is to locate these close to the existing grid. If that isn't possible, we need to have generators in place to run the system. Even if we're on the grid, we have the option to hook into different independent power solutions.
Our video on the technology describes this flexibility and some other features of our systems: http://www.blumberggrain.com/video/
AAM: What is the secret of your success in these demanding markets?
Blumberg: That is because of two things: first, the success that we have realized in the market vis-à-vis the application of our product; and second, for some reason, there haven't been companies that emerged to play a role in this storage space in these emerging markets.
When you look at these developing countries, our competition is, for the most part, local concrete contractors. These contractors put up a concrete warehouse that has only a tangential application to food security. The warehouse offers no specialized ancillary options or specialized components. They don't provide the safety and security needed to keep the crop preserved in-condition. So you continue to see high post-harvest loss rates.
We designed our warehouses with coatings and primers that reflect about 65 percent of the sun's heat. We have seals that create foam closures between each panel. This means you don't have leakage and you don't have water coming into the facility. We've designed our warehouse to be basic nuts-and-bolts assembly, so any skilled labor can put it up fast. So there are no problematic issues with construction, and we can be sure the facility works as intended.
In agriculture, the harvest season dictates the timeline for construction projects. If you miss the harvest season deadline, you lose that year's benefit. It is critical to be fast and timely. We hold the record in the industry for the ability to get 600 square meters of covered storage up, in three days.
To read the full interview, click here. For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.
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