GEA provides the technological foundation for Bauer's move to in-house production of its plant base

• Turnkey project in Wasserburg combines raw material processing, process design, and plant integration

• GEA supplies the core process technology, from raw material intake to the finished plant base

• Centralized project management enables implementation within an exceptionally short timeframe

On July 16, 2026, the private dairy Bauer inaugurated its new production and innovation facility in Wasserburg am Inn, Germany, with Bavarian Minister of Agriculture Michaela Kaniber also in attendance. The event brought into view a project GEA has been working on for around a year and a half: The engineering group supplied and implemented the complete process technology for producing plant base for Bauer, from raw material intake to the finished concentrate Bauer will use as the basis for its plant-based products going forward. Regular production starts in August 2026.

For GEA, it's the first project of this scale: The group accompanied the entire journey, from the initial idea through process development to the operational plant, as a single-source provider. Bauer has been making plant-based yogurt alternatives for some time already, but until now sourced the soy base for them externally. With the new facility, the dairy brings this upstream production step in-house – a move that shows how dairies today approach their plant-based raw material line: not as something bought in, but as in-house industrial expertise they build up themselves. GEA supplied the process engineering foundation that move required.

From silo to concentrate: an end-to-end scope

GEA took on every process step itself for this project: receiving and storing raw soybeans, mixing and grinding, solids separation via decanter, thermal inactivation using heating technology, tank storage, water treatment, and the associated CIP cleaning systems. At the end of the line is a plant-based concentrate, which Bauer further processes into yogurt alternatives at its existing facilities. That fermentation and filling plant itself is not part of GEA's scope. GEA also supported the project from the very first feasibility tests onward and assisted with building planning made possible by a long-standing relationship of trust between the two companies.

The project could only be implemented so quickly because GEA minimized the number of interfaces: GEA acted as general contractor and brought together several teams of experts, including dairy processing experts from Munich and from the process test centers in Ahaus and Oelde – under a single project lead. Bauer awarded the contract to GEA in May 2025, installation began in January 2026, and the first batch already follows in August 2026. GEA developed and validated its initial process concepts and performance data beforehand in precisely these test centers – the same approach the group has already applied on comparable projects for dairies and beverage producers across Europe and overseas.

“Projects like this demonstrate why we view plant-based as a strategic growth area for GEA,” says GEA Project Manager Michael Klamt. “The fact that we were able to support Bauer as a single-source partner from the initial feasibility study all the way to a fully operational plant was essential to reliably meeting such an ambitious timeline. And it prooves that our investments in the test centers in Ahaus and Oelde pay off.”

From Bauer’s perspective, the initial assessment is positive, according to the company. “Because GEA brought together testing, process design, engineering, and implementation under one roof, our project was able to move full steam ahead,” says Sebastian Bodmeier, Technical Project Manager at the private dairy Bauer. “We had a single point of contact for the entire process chain – that saved us time in every phase of the project without having to compromise on quality.”

A growing field for GEA, built on years of experience

The Bauer project builds on years of experience GEA has developed in the plant-based sector. The technology group has long developed process solutions that extract bases from oats, rice, soy, and other plant-based raw materials – for dairies and specialized startups alike, in Germany and abroad. The Bauer order shows that established German dairies, too, are now drawing on this expertise to build their own plant-based value chain, rather than relying on purchased base ingredients.

There was more to this than a new production step, and that became clear even before the official inauguration: at the OMR Festival in Hamburg in early May 2026, Bauer gave a broad audience its first taste of "Bauer KFYR Plant-Based," a plant-based kefir drink. GEA teams from the Ahaus and Oelde test centers helped develop and validate the process behind it. With the new facility and innovation center in Wasserburg, Bauer now has the foundation to keep advancing such products on its own. In other words, a market-ready product was already available months before the inauguration.