History
For the past 140 years the main activity of the plant was production of sugar, which was for the most part exported abroad. The establishment of the company dates back to the year 1856 when the original owner Alexander Scholler decided to lay down foundations for the production of white sugar under the leadership of Karl Brockhoff. The plant construction had been completed in a rather short period of time and by 8 October 1858 the first successful sugar beet campaign was launched, lasting until the beginning of April 1859. The total amount of used sugar beet back then was 13 000 tons.In the year 1868 the company was entitled Komanditni spolecnost Scholler a spol.with the head office in Vienna, Austria. In 1948 (the year which marked a dramatic political turmoil in postwar Czechoslovakia) the company was nationalized. Subsequently in 1953 the name of the company changed to Sugarmill and Sugar Refinery in Vrdy. By the year 1960 this national company was merged with the Kolin sugarmills. After the end of the totalitarian regime in Central/Eastern Europe this time period came to an end in 1993 as a result of the triumphant privatization of national companies. A new company under the name Union Sugar was established and besides the Vrdy sugarmill it also united other sugarmills namely in Nymburk, Cerhenice and Cesky Brod). Than in 1998 production of sugar was brought to an end and the plant was closed down.
In 1999 the plant was bought by company DEHTOCHEMA BITUMAT a.s. – the largest roofing isolation and asphalt producing company on the Czech market. The new owner resumed production of sugar and a few years later decided to accomplish a new business project, i.e. to construct a bioethanol plant (first of its kind and capacity in the Czech Republic) in place of the somewhat older sugarmill Vrdy. Although the estimated investment calculations totaled approximately 600 million CZK, the construction of brand new bioethanol technology has been launched after DEHTOCHEMA BITUMAT’s transition to ETHANOL ENERGY.a.s, completed in 2006. In order to preserve the original architectonic mode, certain remodeled buildings were used for the placement of separate parts of technology, e.g. for the delivery of wheat, starch hydrolysis and processing of stillage. Other parts necessary for bioethanol production (our main product) had to be placed outside of the existing entities, e.g. fermentation, distillation, and product storage.