Alfa Laval AB is a Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 company

Corporation

A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...

, founded in 1883 by Gustaf de Laval

Gustaf de Laval

Karl Gustaf Patrik de Laval was a Swedish engineer and inventor who made important contributions to the design of steam turbines and dairy machinery.-Life:De Laval was born at Orsa in Dalarna...

 and Oscar Lamm. The company is a leading producer of specialized products and solutions used to heat, cool, separate and transport such products as oil, water, chemicals, beverages, foodstuffs, starch and pharmaceuticals.

History

Alfa Laval was founded as AB Separator and the current name was introduced in 1963. Between 1991 and 2000 Alfa Laval was a part of the Tetra Pak

Tetra Pak

Tetra Pak is a multinational food processing and packaging company of Swedish origin. It was founded in 1951 in Lund, Sweden, by Ruben Rausing. It was Erik Wallenberg who invented the tetrahedral package, today known as Tetra Classic...

 Group. In 1991, Alfa Laval Agri, a company producing diary farming equipment, was split from Alfa Laval. When Alfa Laval was sold, Alfa Laval Agri remained a part of the Tetra Pak group and was renamed DeLaval

DeLaval

DeLaval is a Swedish company, split in 1991 from Alfa Laval, which was founded in 1883 by Gustaf de Laval and Oscar Lamm. The company is a leading producer of dairy and farming machinery...

, after the company's founder.

Alfa Laval now divides its operations between equipment (capital sales) and process technology (contracts with longer duration).

In October 2003, Alfa Laval acquired bioKinetics, the life science division of Kinetics Group in the US, positioning the company in the North American market for integrated factory processes in mammalian cell culture

Cell culture

Cell culture is the complex process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions. In practice, the term "cell culture" has come to refer to the culturing of cells derived from singlecellular eukaryotes, especially animal cells. However, there are also cultures of plants, fungi and microbes,...

. The resulting subsidiary, Alfa Laval Biokinetics (aka Biokinetics), is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

and is a member of the Pennsylvania Bio commerce organization.

International operations

Manufacturing at Alfa Laval is carried out in several countries including Sweden, India, China, the UK, and USA.

Canada

In Canada, Alfa Laval has had a presence for over 100 years, previously as D-Laval, which would provide such services to farmers as assisting them in the storage of their milk and providing cream separators. Alfa Laval is headquartered in Toronto and in 2009 opened a service centre in Edmonton, Alberta. In late 2010, staff in the Canadian operations numbered 74.

United States

Alfa Laval has been present in the United States of America for more than 125 years - marketing and supplying a broad range of heat exchangers, separators, decanters, pumps, valves and fittings to customers in a wide range of market segments. The brand is known for such products as Tri-Clover®, Contherm®, Sharples®, Merco®, Standard Refrigeration®, Ketema™ and Champ. There are 710 employees in the US - with 15 locations including Richmond, VA; Warminster, PA; Kenosha, WI; Sacramento, CA; Melrose Park, IL; Carter Lake, IA and Sarasota, FL - as well as an International distribution center in Indianapolis, IN. There are seven service and repair centers. Heat exchangers, fluid handling equipment and centrifuges are manufactured in the USA.