Aarhus, Denmark – December 2026 – Arla Foods, one of Europe’s largest dairy producers, has announced a 22% reduction in milk processing waste and 35% faster batch changeovers after implementing the ABB PM825 3BSE010796R1 controller at its butter and cheese manufacturing plant in Aarhus. The upgrade, finished in Q4 2026, resolved critical process control issues in the plant’s legacy system—where inconsistent temperature regulation and manual batch setup caused excessive waste and production delays, costing the company €850,000 annually.
The Challenge: Inconsistency and Inefficiency in Dairy Processing
Before adopting the ABB PM825 3BSE010796R1, Arla Foods’ Aarhus plant grappled with three key operational pain points:
- Temperature Fluctuation Waste: Legacy controllers maintained milk pasteurization temperatures with ±1.5°C variance, leading to 11% of batches being overheated (destroying nutrients) or underheated (failing safety standards)—resulting in 380 tons of wasted milk annually.
- Slow Batch Changeovers: Switching between butter, cheese, and cream production required manual reconfiguration of 24+ controller parameters, taking 90 minutes per changeover and limiting the plant to 4 batches daily.
- Compliance Documentation Burden: Operators spent 12 hours weekly manually logging process data (temperature, pH, processing time) to meet EU food safety regulations (EC 852/2004), leading to 2–3 data entry errors per week.
- Poor Energy Efficiency: The old system ran pumps and heaters at constant speeds, regardless of batch size, wasting 15% of the plant’s electricity usage.
“Dairy processing is all about consistency—our legacy controllers couldn’t deliver the precision we needed to minimize waste and meet demand,” said Kirsten Hansen, Arla Foods’ Plant Manager. “We needed a control solution that could regulate processes with pinpoint accuracy while streamlining changeovers and compliance.”
ABB PM825 3BSE010796R1: The Precision Controller for Food Production
After evaluating competitors from Schneider Electric and Emerson, Arla Foods chose the ABB PM825 3BSE010796R1 for its precise PID control, recipe management, and food-safe design:
- Precision Process Regulation: Advanced PID algorithms maintain temperatures, pressure, and pH levels with ±0.1°C/±0.05 pH accuracy, eliminating batch inconsistencies.
- Recipe Management System: Stores 500+ pre-configured production recipes, enabling one-touch batch changeovers in just 24 minutes—no manual parameter adjustment required.
- Automated Compliance Logging: Automatically records and timestamps process data, generating audit-ready reports for EU food safety regulations. Integrates with Arla’s existing ERP system for seamless documentation.
- Energy Optimization Features: Dynamically adjusts pump and heater speeds based on batch size and process stage, reducing energy consumption via demand-based control.
- Hygienic Compatibility: IP20-rated housing with easy-to-clean surfaces, complies with FDA and EU 10/2011 food safety standards, and resists dust and moisture in dairy environments.
Results: Waste Reduction and Efficiency Gains
Five months post-deployment, Arla Foods’ Aarhus plant saw significant improvements:
| Metric |
Before ABB PM825 3BSE010796R1 |
After ABB PM825 3BSE010796R1 |
Improvement |
| Production Waste |
11% of Batches |
8.6% of Batches |
22% Reduction |
| Batch Changeover Time |
90 Mins/Batch |
24 Mins/Batch |
73% Faster |
| Compliance Documentation Time |
12 Hrs/Week |
3 Hrs/Week |
75% Savings |
| Energy Usage |
1,800 kWh/Batch |
1,530 kWh/Batch |
15% Reduction |
| Annual Cost Savings |
— |
€620,000 |
Direct ROI |
“The PM825 3BSE010796R1 has transformed how we run our dairy plant,” Hansen said. “We’re wasting less milk, producing more batches daily, and audit preparation that used to stress our team is now effortless. It’s a win for efficiency, sustainability, and compliance.”
Mikkel Jensen, ABB’s Regional Product Specialist for Food & Beverage Automation, emphasized the controller’s industry-specific value: “Food producers face unique pressures—tight safety regulations, perishable ingredients, and demand for flexibility. The PM825 3BSE010796R1 is engineered to address these, delivering precision and efficiency that directly impacts the bottom line.”
Arla Foods plans to roll out the ABB PM825 3BSE010796R1 to 6 more dairy plants across Scandinavia by 2028, aiming to cut group-wide food waste by 18% and increase production capacity by 10%.
