In spring, farmers sowed 15.5 thousand hectares of sugar beets for the factory. Crop yields are estimated to be below last year's average of 68 tonnes. During the campaign, the sugar factory is planning to process 7,500 tonnes of crops per day on average.
Drought has caused the worst average crop yield over the last three years and in addition farmers produced sugar beet in many cases on plots far away from the railway loading points. This explains why the harvested crop is arriving to the factory of „Magyar Cukor Zrt.” in an equal portion, either on the road or by rail.
In order to guarantee the success of the 80-day campaign, experts of RCH are continuously in contact with the sugar beet inspectors and the production colleagues of the sugar factory. A good result is guaranteed by the proper capacity of the railway company's locomotive and wagon fleets.
To increase efficiency, this year RCH started testing the use of agro-containers. This new technical solution creates a more flexible connection between rail and road transport. Using agro-containers enables the transport of 25% more sugar beets compared with the conventional Eas wagons. As the seasonality of the sugar beet campaign coincides with that of other freight segments, like scrap, ore, coal, stone, gravel, in which demand for Eas wagons is also high at this time, by using agro-containers wagons can be freed up for other freight orders.
RCH is the traditional rail freight carrier of sugar beet in Hungary, having an excellent knowledge of the needs of the factory in Kaposvár. This is one of the reasons why this year the company was awarded the contract on the internal rail freight transport services of the sugar factory as well.