Founded in 1883 by Gustaf de Laval and Oscar Lamb, his business partner at the time, the DeLaval company which was previously known as Alfa Laval Agri is the leading supplier in terms of dairy and farming machinery. The Alfa Laval Agri company was mainly known for their contributions to the dairy industry, the most notable one being the centrifugal milk-cream separator that they patented. They are also known for the innovations they brought to the milking machinery of the time, and have since focused on offering the best in terms of farming machinery. The name was changed in 1991, when the company was bought by the Tetra Pak Group, the latter deciding to name it DeLaval in honor of the founder.

The DeLaval Systems

The DeLaval company current leads the farming machinery industry through four main dairy farm systems.

Automatic Milking Systems. The Automatic Milking Systems, also known as AMS, encompasses the milking of dairy animals without the need for human labor. Developed and commercially available in the late 1990s, these systems are based on agricultural robots that are assisted by herd management software, thus requiring minimal human interaction during the milking of cattle. The main advantage of these systems is the fact that the animals choose when they want to be milked, advantage that also earned them the name of Voluntary Milking Systems.

Cooling Systems. DeLaval brought the solution to the main issue people had with Automatic Milking Systems, the cooling system. Indeed, freezing milk reduces its quality by damaging the proteins, and since an AMS milks the animal at irregular intervals, it increases the risks of the milk getting below the minimum cooling level. The DeLaval Flow Controlled Cooling FCC and DeLaval Buffer Controlled Cooling BCC fixed this problem, the former adapting its cooling levels to the amount of milk it contains, and the former being designed for an “around the clock” cooling.

Feeding Systems. Any farmer would agree that the most expensive aspect of milk production is feeding the cattle. It is thus no exaggeration to say that the optimization of the feeding management systems can have a huge impact on how profitable the milk production will be. The DeLaval Feeding Systems provide the best solutions to farmers, whether they already have feeding strategies or not.

Farm Management Support Systems. Like any other business, a dairy farm requires an excellent management plat to be successful. Effectively, regardless of the size of the dairy farm, the Farm Management Support Systems it uses will have a great impact on its development, be it positive or negative. DeLaval provides professional Farm Management Support Systems, that guarantee the most effective strategies, saving farm owners both time and money.