Opened in May, measured by its first harvest
Lantmännen inaugurated its new grain facility at the Port of Uddevalla on 11 May 2026, in a ceremony attended by Sweden's Minister for Rural Affairs, Peter Kullgren. The cooperative puts the investment at approximately SEK 500 million and calls it the largest industrial project of its kind in Sweden since the 1980s. Built between 2024 and 2026 with Tornum as developer, the facility receives, dries, stores and loads grain for farmers across western Sweden, and it replaced an older installation on the site. Because the inauguration came just ahead of the harvest, the autumn 2026 season was the plant's first real test, and trade coverage of the hub in October returned to the same set of numbers. Those numbers are the story: on a clean-sheet site, every stage of the chain was rated deliberately, and the ratings were published.
The chain in numbers, stage by stage
The official fact sheet reads like a specification for the whole route from truck to ship. Intake is two reception points rated at 250 tonnes per hour each. Drying is two dryers of 44 tonnes per hour each. Storage is approximately 44,000 tonnes in 21 silos. The conveyor belt linking storage to the quay is 400 metres long and rated at 750 tonnes per hour. At the berth, a 56-metre ship loader loads vessels at 500 tonnes per hour during the harvest season, serving ships of up to 30,000 tonnes. Across a year, Lantmännen expects the facility to handle up to 100,000 tonnes of grain. Two relationships in that sheet deserve attention. The belt is rated half as much again as the loader it feeds, so the transfer leg is never the constraint at the berth. And combined intake, at 500 tonnes per hour, matches the loading rate exactly, so grain can in principle move from reception towards the ship at the same rate it leaves.
What the old plant explains about the new rates
The clearest design statement is the intake. The previous facility had four reception points of 60 tonnes per hour each, a combined 240 tonnes per hour; the new plant has two points of 250. Fewer, larger intake points mean fewer drives, fewer transfer points and fewer machines to clean and maintain, at the cost of losing redundancy if one point stops. Lantmännen also states that the automation level has been raised from low to medium or high compared with the old plant, which is what makes a leaner intake layout operable with a small crew at harvest peak. The vessel class was the other deliberate step: the deep-water berth takes ships up to 30,000 tonnes, and at the project's announcement Lantmännen argued that this size reaches markets such as the United States and North Africa that pay more than the destinations reachable by smaller vessels. The loader's 56 metres of outreach is the mechanical consequence of that commercial decision.
Specification lessons for grain terminal buyers
The lessons below are this journal's reading of the Uddevalla figures for buyers specifying grain terminals elsewhere; they are not Lantmännen tender terms. First, specify the chain as matched rates: intake, drying, storage reclaim, conveying and loading belong in one capacity table, because the slowest stage sets the terminal's real throughput. Second, note where the true bottleneck sits. At Uddevalla it is drying: 88 tonnes per hour combined against 500 tonnes per hour of intake, which is normal for grain - only the wet share of a harvest needs drying - but it means dryer capacity, not reception capacity, decides how much wet grain a terminal can accept per day. Third, rate the conveyor above the loader it feeds, as the 750 against 500 tonnes per hour does here, so berth time is governed by one machine whose rate the contract can hold. Fourth, treat the automation level as a priced specification line rather than a feature list: the jump from low to medium-high automation is what allowed the intake points to halve. Fifth, let the vessel class set the loader: outreach and loading rate follow from the largest ship the berth must serve.
What the releases do not itemise
For all the precision of its capacity figures, Lantmännen's material leaves the equipment layer unnamed. The releases identify Tornum as the developer contracted to build the facility, but they do not itemise who manufactured the 400-metre conveyor system or the ship loader, and they publish no belt width, belt speed or drive configuration. Buyers benchmarking a project of their own should therefore treat the tonnes-per-hour sheet as the verifiable layer and the equipment packages as still unpublished; supplier case studies, if they appear, will be the document that completes the picture. The programme context is public, though. Uddevalla is one element of more than SEK 1 billion of Lantmännen grain-infrastructure investment: its Djurön facility received a new boat loader of roughly SEK 100 million able to serve 60,000-tonne vessels, and further investment is planned at Västerås, Köping and Hargshamn. Swedish grain terminals will be buying handling equipment for several more seasons.
A clean-sheet lesson, not a cutover lesson
This hub should not be read with the same questions as a live-terminal retrofit. At Neptune in Vancouver, the subject of a recent article in this journal, the hard problem was replacing loaders and conveyors without interrupting shipments; the purchase was as much a cutover plan as a set of machines. Uddevalla is the opposite case: a new-build hub on a port site, where the old plant's limits - 240 tonnes per hour of intake, low automation, smaller vessels - were converted directly into the new facility's headline rates. For buyers planning greenfield grain terminals, the transferable discipline is the capacity table itself: five stages, each rated, each rating traceable to a commercial decision about trucks, harvest moisture, storage turns or ship size. Where a figure cannot be traced that way, it is usually a catalogue number that has wandered into a specification.
Manufacturer announcements and our analysis are distinguished. Product claims require verification for the specific application.
Sources
Minister for Rural Affairs inaugurates Lantmännen's new grain facility - Lantmännen ↗The owner's inauguration release (May 2026), opened in full: primary source for the 11 May 2026 inauguration date, the approximately SEK 500 million investment, the 2024-2026 construction period, 21 silos and about 44,000 tonnes of storage, intake of two points at 250 t/h against the old four at 60 t/h, the 400-metre conveyor belt rated at 750 t/h, the 56-metre ship loader loading at 500 t/h, vessels up to 30,000 tonnes, annual handling up to 100,000 tonnes, the automation step from low to medium/high, and Tornum named as developer.
Lantmännen invests half a billion SEK in new grain facility - Lantmännen via Cision ↗The owner's investment announcement (2024), opened in full: source for Tornum as the contracted builder, the two dryers of 44 t/h each, the 35-metre height and the deep-water rationale - 30,000-tonne vessels reaching better-paying markets such as the US and North Africa. Its planned storage figure of 41,000 tonnes was superseded by the roughly 44,000 tonnes stated at inauguration, which is the figure this article uses.
Lantmännen continues to invest in Sweden's grain infrastructure - Lantmännen ↗The owner's programme release (2024), opened in full: source for the wider context used in section five - more than SEK 1 billion of combined grain-infrastructure investment, the new boat loader of about SEK 100 million at Djurön serving vessels up to 60,000 tonnes, and further investment planned at Västerås, Köping and Hargshamn. Programme-level context only; no Uddevalla equipment detail is drawn from it.
Lantmännen opens major new grain-handling hub at Uddevalla - Euro Bulk Systems ↗Bulk-handling trade report (15 October 2026), opened in full: independent industry-media restatement of the same parameter set - SEK 500 million, 21 silos, about 44,000 tonnes of storage, 2x250 t/h intake, 500 t/h ship loading, 400-metre conveyor system, 56-metre ship loader, 30,000-tonne vessels. Its October date is a publication date, not the opening: the inauguration itself took place on 11 May 2026, as the owner's release states.
.jpg){kind=link}