Neova has its origins in the Hudiksvall based company Råsjö Torv and the Jönköping based company SÅBI, two driven entrepreneurial businesses with roots in the Swedish agricultural industry and south Swedish sawmills.
At the beginning of 2004, Råsjö Torv acquired the pellet company SÅBI and the companies started to operate as a single company. In August 2006 the two companies were joined even closer through a common brand – Neova. In November 2007, eighteen heating plants and eight district heating networks were acquired from Vattenfall. These were supplemented by district heating plants in Kramfors and Billesholm. This expanded operations further and made Neova into the complete supplier of wood fuels that it is today.
Peat processing has been a natural part of Swedish agriculture since ancient times, but it was not until 1980 that the authorities realised peat's possibilities as a domestic energy source and as a suitable alternative for imported fossil fuels, for example coal and oil. As a result of the increased interest in peat, Råsjö Torv was founded at the beginning of the 1980s by Olle Råbom in Hudiksvall, an investment completely in line with new energy politics.
South Sweden sawmills was founded in 1964 as a cooperative organisation for a number of sawmills. The aim was to work for mutual interests and to market and sell wood by-products. The organisation was called SÅBI and later turned into a company that worked with production, marketing and sales of wood fuel. To start with it was about selling wood chips to the pulp industry, but during the 1970s a feeling started to grow that the future lay in wood fuel, primarily pellets.
Agroenergi Lantmännen has its origins in SBE Svensk BrikettEnergi AB which was owned by Kinnarps AB and Jarl Mared. SBE Svensk BrikettEnergi was in its time Sweden's largest manufacturer of refined wood pellets, briquettes and wood powder with seven production facilities in Sweden and one in Latvia. Since the beginning, SBE Svensk BrikettEnergi has been a pioneer and leader in its field. The company was the first in the country to privately construct, own and operate a district heating plant (1983).
The Lantmän group purchased the company and then created Agroenergi Lantmännen. Lantmännen history goes from field to fork. Swedish farming has a long tradition of cooperative collaboration and the first farming cooperatives were created during the second half of the 19th century. The aims were to improve quality control, reduce purchase prices and transport costs, and to create better opportunities for exchange of experience and information between farmers. To start with local farmers cooperatives were created, but there was soon a need to create larger trading partnerships. The next step was to build county based regional societies.
Lantmännen Agroenergi is part of the Lantmän group's Energy business segment which in turn covers Lantmännen's operations in the energy sector. We manufacture and sell solid processed biofuels such as heating pellets, briquettes and powder under the Agrol brand. The company also operates 16 small heating plants, where more than 90% of the delivery is from biofuels and waste heat. Together, the facilities in Norberg/Insjön, Malmbäck, Ulricehamn and Talsi in Latvia create a very competitive company.