Gustav Heess is a leading supplier and manufacturer of vegetable oils and fats for the cosmetic, food, and pharmaceutical industries. With over 100 different oils in its portfolio, a state-of-the-art production facility is essential. In 2025, the company launched its new factory, powered by Indus big bag handling systems to ensure round-the-clock production efficiency.
The Challenge
To meet the growing demand while maintaining high standards of quality and traceability, Gustav Heess needed a flexible, scalable, and cost-effective system. Traditional internal silos proved too costly, harder to clean, and lacked efficient material tracking. The goal: continuous 24/7 oil production without compromising on safety, space, or sustainability.
The Indus Solution
Indus supplied over 100 big bag systems, including unloading and filling stations. At the core of the solution is the FlowPole system, designed to keep big bags flowing smoothly – even overnight without manual intervention. The modular design allows for two or even three units to be stacked, providing a total of up to 4m³ capacity per station and drastically reducing the need for bulky and expensive silos.
The Result
The results from this project with Indus were found in many different areas of the business:
- Ensuring production continuity (100% production time): Due to the unique characteristics of the Flow pole system, the big bags are lifted and keep the nuts flowing, even at night when there is no one around.
- Space optimization (40-60% savings): In production: by using two stacked big bag systems, in total 4m³, instead of small inside silos. Silos are much more expensive, its more difficult to trace materials and have high cleaning costs. In storage: by stacking two or three systems, 40-60% of space is saved.
- Increasing employee safety (100% safety): No big bags can cause an accident when handled correctly with the Indus big bag units.
- Improving competitive advantage: With high production volumes and cost-efficient space and product use, Gustav Heess can be a competitive player in the oil production market.
- Increasing re-use & circularity: By using recyclable big bags and making sure the by-products are processed into animal feed and collected into big bag systems.
