Tracing protein up to Norrköping
A warm hello from sunny Norrköping, Vanessa is here and in this post, I am really excited to share my experience as a trainee at Lantmännen!
For my first rotation, I get the privilege to do the assignment at Lantmännen Agroetanol, an energy division located at Norrköping, eastern Sweden. (Fun fact: Agroetanol is the largest biorefinery in the Nordics with production of almost 25 tonnes of bioethanol (yes, that fuel that you add to your gasoline) per hour!). Apart from bioethanol, we are also producing feed products for livestock and liquified CO2 known as carbonic acid that attracts customers from food industry.
For my assignment, I will investigate the traceability of protein content in our feed products, right from the delivery of the raw materials up to the loading of logistics to the customers. Sounds trivial, but I can assure you it is absolutely not. 😉
The perks of working on a production site: this is my everyday view at work. In front of distillation tanks.
This field is completely new for me, but this is when the fun parts come 🙂 My project instructor has given me a free space so I can decide how I would like to execute this project. Therefore, I could be creative, show some initiatives, and point out critical points since this project is basically my “playground”, but of course from time to time I still need his supervision. Also an important part in this project is networking. To be able to collect data, I need to talk to a lot of people from different professional areas. This is the part where I got to polish my communication skills and an opportunity to start building contacts. Some can be approached through lunch, mails, or as simple as coming by their offices. To have their various insights and linking them together on this project is interesting but also tricky 😉 All in all, so far I can say Agroetanol provides a friendly environment and a welcoming atmosphere for a new employee like me.
In front of fermentation tanks, where all the magic happens
For me, being a trainee (even though it has been 2 weeks only) is definitely pushing me out of my boundaries, in a good way of course 🙂 I don’t mind at all because I realize this is one of the ways to enhance self-development, so I am up for the challenges! Bring it on!
Time to wrap up my post and head straight to the weekend!
Until next time, Vanessa