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Assen, Netherlands - Paul Mueller Company is helping the African country of Uganda supply fresh milk to its citizens. The Ugandan government contracted with Mueller for its stainless steel milk tanks, milk coolers, cooling equipment, generators and heat recovery systems to set up milk collection centers in 140 villages throughout Uganda. 80 of these collection centers have been installed so far, the contract for 60 more installs will take place in the next 10 months.

In the past Ugandan farmers have only been able to collect as much milk as they could consume or trade, within a couple of days before it would go bad. Now they can take their raw milk to a collection center where they are paid by the weight.

"The Farmers who bring their milk to these collection points receive more money for their milk.  This allows them to grow the business and if they have enough cows, they need a tank of their own." says the President of Mueller's European Operations in The Netherlands, Wytze Tjepkema. "Secondly because Farmers have more money, the whole village of farmers grows richer and this encourages young people to stay in the country side instead of seeking fortune in a bigger city, resulting in a stronger economy overall for these villages."

Tjepkema along with his team headed by Jos Ten Horn worked with the Dutch and Ugandan governments to get funding for the construction and operation of the collection centers through government grants.

Paul Mueller Company builds innovative processing equipment for dairy farms and a wide variety of other applications in food, beverage, pharmaceutical and chemical facilities worldwide.

"Mueller is the premier milk tank manufacturer in the world." says Tjepkema. "So when this problem for Ugandan dairy farmers was presented to us, we knew just the solution"