Tancacha Industrial Complex, at the town of Cordoba with the same name, where Guipeba was created in 1965 (cradle of present Bunge Argentina, and the place were still today the company has its accounting and tax headquarters), has a milling capacity of 1,000 tons/day, with a multipurpose oil extraction line to process soybean and peanuts.There is also a modern plant that produces lecithin, one of the few plants in the southern hemisphere that supplies the global market.
Tancacha Industrial Complex has a milling capacity of 3,600 tons/day, with two lines for multipurpose oil extraction, where soybean, peanuts, sunflowers and safflowers are processed. At the site, there is also a modern plant that produces lecithin, one of the few in the southern hemisphere that supplies the global market.
Soybean Lecithin Wet gums obtained from degumming processing of soybean oil, which are rich in phospholipids, generally exhibit 25 - 30% moisture. This is the raw material to obtain lecithin. It is fed into a dryer, which is a falling film evaporator and works with steam as indirect heating medium under vacuum conditions. Under these conditions, the water contained in wet gums evaporates to produce an intermediate product with lower than 1 percent moisture content. This intermediate lecithin has a very high viscosity, making it necessary to add oil and fatty acids to reach specifications. Once these substances have been added, it is homogenized and analyzed.
Lecithin is packed in drums, octabins, or dispatched in bulks. Bunge produces three different qualities of lecithin, two of food grade, and one of industrial grade. Presently, the highest percentage of lecithin is food grade, a very demanding market, because food safety is involved since lecithin is added to products that go directly to shelves, as is the case of milk powder.
