I (Anna) am enjoying the final weeks of my time at Agricultural Division. After these few months, I know I will miss Malmö with its warm climate (compared to Stockholm;)) and flat roads (perfect for cycling and taking driving lessons). My project have recently brought me to Norway again, this time I got to visit Tønsberg – the oldest town in Norway located 100 km away from Oslo. It wasn´t the sightseeing that brought me to this town, but one of the biggest farms in Norway – Jarlsberg Hovedgård. Jarlsberg is one of the farms supplying wheat to our mill in Oslo and the aim of our visit was to meet with owner and talk about new opportunities for collaboration.
Current owner is a representative of 12th generation of Wedel Jarlsberg family and his presentation about the estate was rather different from what I ever heard from a modern farmer. Owner´s grand ancestor was the King´s official and the family played an important role in developing Tønsberg into a prosperous city.
With historical roots dating a few centuries back, Jarlsberg today is a great example of a modern farm that benefits from digitalization, mentioning it as a strong driver to the improved profitability.
In this blog it feels like I (Axel) have written it hundreds of times but one of the best parts of the trainee program has truly been to get to visit our factories and our many productions sites. This is not only fun but also extremely valuable as being out where it actually happens gives a lot of insights and an understanding of what actually happens from field to fork. This is therefore something I want to encourage everyone to do, regardless of if you work for Lantmännen or for another company.
Last week I did what might be my final visit during the trainee program when I together with Joel, Robert and our boss Hampus went to Lidköping for a day of touring our factory there. One of the former trainees, Pauline ,also guided us around which was helpful. Lidköping is really a perfect place to go to as we not only have both a grain intake and a feed factory, it’s also the place of Lantmännen Reppe, which processes wheat to everything from glucose syrup to wheat gluten. One takeaway from this visit is definitely that it never seizes to amaze me how many different things that can be made from something which you can see swaying out in the fields.
/Axel & Anna