A short introduction to Roal Ltd

Roal Ltd is one of the world´s largest enzyme companies. Our R&D and manufacturing facilities are located in Rajamäki, 50 km north of Finland´s capital Helsinki. We produce enzymes for different industrial applications, e.g. baking, food, technical and feed industries. Our core competence areas are Trichoderma, Aspergillus and Bacillus -fermentations. In our process we combine long term biotechnical research and knowledge with modern technology and professional personnel. Over 90 % of our products are exported worldwide.

Roal was established in 1991 as a joint venture by former Finnish Alko Ltd and German Röhm GmbH. Both companies had a decades-long history in enzyme research and production. Today we are proud to be owned by Altia and Assiociated British Foods. In the marketing and selling our products we co-operate with AB Enzymes.

As a company we are striving for greater customer orientation and satisfaction. We do this by ensuring excellent product quality and "on time in full" deliveries to the customer - every day. By running our business efficiently and profitably we want to earn our owners´ and stakeholders´ trust.  As an employer our main focus is on offering our employees a fair and safe place to work with a spirit of continuous improvement. As a production site we continuously improve the environmental aspects of our process and products.

Roal´s turnover was 33 million Euros in the fiscal year 2007-2008. In August 2009 we had 102 employees, whose average age was 38 years.

Our organization consists of R&D and manufacturing.

Research and development
In the R&D our goals are always very ambitious. In addition to high performance and cost effectiviness our products must fill high quality- and environmental standards and they need to offer functional and safe solutions to our customers.
Investments in the research are approximately 10 % of our revenues. Main tasks in the R&D are discovering novel genes, improving the existing molecules and developing the Trichoderma reesei-production technology. We cooperate with several Finnish and international research organizations. Many of our research projects are funded by EU-programs or by TEKES. R&D develops annually 2-3 new enzyme products, which are carefully tested at our pilot plant before commercial scale fermentations. To date, our research has lead to over 200 patents.

List of Latest Peer-reviewed Scientific Publications , updated 2.8.2010

Manufacturing
In the manufacturing the enzymes are produced by a submerged fermentation process. Our plant was recently expanded and our capacity was raised by 40 %. At the same time we renewed our SOPs, installed lots of modern instruments and equipment and provided our staff with opportunities for training and learning. Continuous improvement is the key word in manufacturing; we are determined to keep on developing our process and competence.
At the plant, under the same roof with manufacturing are also the quality control laboratory, procurement and logistics department and maintenance. The quality control laboratory certifies the enzyme activities and microbiological standards of our products. The procurement and logistics department is responsible for sourcing, local warehouses and logistics from Rajamäki. The maintenance -team focuses on preventive maintenance and repairing of process technology.