Peters & Burg: Seek cooperation with premium coformulant and formulation companies by 2019 FAT

2019 Ag Formulation & Application Technology Congress (FAT) will be hosted by AgroPages from 14th to 15th November in Hangzhou, China.

Currently, the Congress has attracted a large number of General Director, Operation Manager, Head of R&D, Head of Production, Business Development Director of Chinese and overseas formulation manufacturers. Bursevich Veranika , Business Development Manager at Peters & Burg Ltd. , as one of the attendees, recently accepted our interview and shared his views on Peters & Burg’s business profile, global presence, product series,  and potential partners and requirements etc.


Q1. Could you briefly introduce your company’s major business, global presence,  product series and core competitiveness etc?

Peters&Burg Agrochemical Holding is a leading producer and supplier of generic agrochemical products founded in 1999.  This year our team is happy to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Our core businesses include production and distibution of agrochemicals, manufacturing and distribution of specialized packages, seeds business and agricultural production. With headquarters in Budapest, Hungary and distribution networks in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Hungary, having several years experience in the field, Peters & Burg Holding employees more than 350 highly qualified professionals. 

Since 1999 we have been actively entering new markets, never stopped expanding our distribution system and are investing more and more into research and development. Today, these are still our top priorities. Our experts registered more than 350 products in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Georgia and Hungary.

Our core competitiveness is our experience, flexibility of thinking and ability to combine West reason with East wisdom by providing European innovative quality goods at acceptable price levels. Another strong quality is integrity of adjacent businesses branches: seeds, agrochemicals and packaging, both production and distribution which helps us organise the system in the most cost-effective way. At present we can produce up to 15 MLN L of pesticide formulations annually. Companies owned by the holding now show a total turnover of about 100 MLN USD which is times as much as what it used to be in the beginning.

One more quality is professionalism of our team, who are true masters of their crafts, some of them are working in the company for more than 10-15 years, know well the industry and really good at what they do. Peters & Burg is proud to be home for experts of various nationalities and cultural backgrounds.

Q2. What are the target markets and target clients of your company? Are there any plans to extend other markets in the next five years?

Our main products are generic agrochemical pesticide formulations and the main markets are CIS countries, including  Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Hungary. At present Peters&Burg holds more then 350 registrations in this region, the portofolio consists of the most popular pesticide products of all types. Nevertheless Peters&Burg will step into its third decade history, we are very young and ambitious company. Of course, expanding our core businesses and finding new and new clients and markets are our prime goals. One of our target and the most challenging task is developing EU market, at the moment we have a couple of on-going registrations and more products will start soon. Other areas is to expand business in Caucasus region (Gergia, Azerbaijan etc.) and Middle East.  As well as we plan to extend our production units with separate lines for dry products and innovative types of formulations. Steping into the field of precision agriculture services, exploring the field of green technologies and biopesticides inspires our team to discover new horizons and market possibilities.

Q3. What’s the overview of agrochemical formulation production in your company and the main formulation types? What are the major challenges you are facing now in the process of formulation R&D and manufacturing?

We specialize in the production of liquid pesticide formulations. Our general annual production capacity is 15 MLN L/year. We have 5 separate production lines for production of water and solvent based fungicide, insecticide and herbicide products. The lines for production of water-based formulations such as SC, SE, EW, FS, ME have the capacity of 16 000 - 35 000 L/day, for production of SL, EW 40 000 – 60 000 L/day. The lines for production of solvent based formulations (EC, OD, UL) have the following capacity: 40 000 – 60 000 L/day.

Farmers more consciously started to use pesticides, consider principle of environmental protection and land health, oriented to innovations and quality of products. This means developing anti-resistence programs, diversification and prepariton of complex tank-mixes, which along with several pesticides contain also micronutriens, humic, fulvic acids, adjuvants, etc., what help farmers reach higher efficiency and save costs and time on separate applications. The resistence to most common organophosphates and pyrethroids lead to popularity of combined products with multiple types of actions. These mixtures are based on the principle of “combinatorics”, as the word itself tells us, they combine 2-3-4 off-patent compounds belonging to different chemical classes or with different modes of action (systemic & non-systemic) in complex system. The usage of straigt 1 products is cutting down recently.

That is why our R&D team is in constant search of novel solutions to existing agricultural issues and looking for the best technological ways to implement our ideas in real agricultural practice. At present there are more than 50 innovative combinations in our R&D pipeline, more than 20 new registrations in process.

From market point of view our challenges related to elaboration and finding technological solution for multicomponent innovative combinations, which nobody has produced before. These mixtures have no analogues on the market and may include technologically complicated cases like sulfonylureas in liquid form in combinations with other active ingredients. Sharp competition is pushing to develop competitive, but good quality products.

From technological point of view we face the following challenges:
1) Crystal growth of suspended solid particles: in aqueous suspension concentrates (SC), seed treatment  suspensions (FS)  and particularly in the case of suspo-emulsions (SE);
2) Physical stability of suspension   in the case of solid which have several polymorph crystal structure;
3) Improve storage stability providing of low syneresis and good blooming/dispersion spontaneity of OD formulations, efficient anticaking and thickening agents for OD;
4) Application of green solvents in the case of EC (emulsifiable concentrate), eventually in the case of ME (microemulsion);
5) Development and production of fluid high loading dispersion (suspension);
6) Improvement of milling efficiency in the case of  suspension which containing solids of significantly different melting point, solubility and lipophyilicity.


Q4. What kind of enterprises do you want to communicate and partner at this event?

First of all, we would like to establish partnerships with potential suppliers, with enterprises which specialize in production of common and innovative coformulants, like adjuvants, surfactants, solvents, etc. As well as we would like to meet formulation companies who are leading innovations and has solid experience in manufacturing complicated products for possible knowledge and experience exchange.


Q5. What congress topics are you most interested in?  

From the market point of view we are interested in new dynamics and trends of global agchem formulation development and formulation engineering technology. From technolgical point of view it is interesting to hear about the latest analysis of global agricultural adjuvant market dynamics and trends, the innovation and development in suspension concentrate, microemulsion, capsulated suspension forms and other topics.


2019 FAT is open for registration globally. We welcome you to be present at 2019 FAT to dialogue with industry fellows.
 

Registration fee

- Registration fee is USD 450/person, and early bird registration fee is USD 398/person (Before 15th Oct. 2019)
- Book a team of 3+ ( enjoy 10% off )
(The fee includes conference, catering, materials, simultaneous interpretation fees).

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Contact person

Grace Yuan | AGROPAGES
Email: agropages@vip.163.com; grace@agropages.com
Tel:+86 15505713266
Wechat: nanagrace2014; 86 15505713266