Logichem Process International

Logichem Process International Logichem is a chemical engineering contracting company located in Wellington, 85km from Cape Town, in the beautiful Cape Winelands district in South Africa.

Logichem was incorporated in 1989. Founded in 1989, Logichem is a leading South African Process Engineering company, involved in the design, construction and optimization of process plants. Logichem has a strong design culture, focused on providing custom solutions to suit clientโ€™s particular circumstances. Our engineers are trained and skilled in the application of cutting-edge design techniques,

mostly developed in-house based on our many years of experience in commissioning and continuously improving our own designs. We make extensive use of Process Simulation in optimizing our technology. Our customer list includes all the major process companies in South Africa, as well as clients in neighboring territories, West Africa, Europe, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, UK and the USA. We actively pursue opportunities to expand our customer base internationally. The extent of repeat businesses we enjoy from existing clients bears testimony of client satisfaction, endorsing our promise to optimize your investment. Logichemโ€™s process simulation capabilities enables us to custom design and optimize specific client requirements, both in terms of performance requirements, as well as making optimum use of existing equipment. Our competitive edge coupled with our own technology, gives us the ability to design from 1st principles enables custom-fit solutions. Scientifically based design techniques + Process Simulation modelling enable rapid evaluation of options to ensure our clientโ€™s investment is optimized. Our thermodynamic models for the CO2 /O2 /N2 System are tried and tested across a wide range of operating conditions. Our engineers have hands-on experience of the practical issues involved in the application of this technology (especially in a retro-fit scenario, which is always more difficult than a new plant, and requires custom design capability to match existing constraints and thus optimize the clientโ€™s investment). With over 20 Years experience in distillation in the chemical engineering industry, not only having expanded our reach to the International Market, but Logichem is a dominant engineering contractor in Ethanol Technology in Southern Africa, as well as being the only contractor in SA with experience in all three spirit types: grain, grape + cane.

25/06/2026

What makes de-alcoholised wine taste like wine? Essence recovery.

It's the step that separates acceptable de-alc from exceptional de-alc. GoLo produces three outputs from a single process: de-alcoholised wine, aroma essence, and rectified spirit.

The essences, those volatile flavour compounds, your nose in a glass, come off first during a gentle boil. We capture them separately. Here's where it gets interesting. Those essences carry about 60-65% alcohol. So blending them back into the wine is a balancing act. At 0.05% alcohol (alcohol-free), you can only blend back about 1% essence. At 0.5% (non-alcoholic), you can restore significantly more of the original wine character.

That trade-off is at the heart of every de-alc decision a winemaker makes. And it's why the quality of essence recovery matters so much.
logichem.com
what is essence recovery in de-alcoholisation
how does GoLo capture wine aromas

18/06/2026

What's next for Logichem?

After 15 years working with GoLo technology, the system is well established globally, with production units operating across four continents. But the next chapter is already underway.

The focus for the next 6 to 12 months: essence recovery.
Logichem is developing a standalone essence concentration unit that also integrates with GoLo. The goal is to give winemakers more control over their essence fraction, enabling them to add back nearly all of the original aroma without exceeding 0.5% alcohol.

At the same time, GoLo with integrated heat pump continues to push boundaries: up to 70% energy savings, completely fossil fuel independent, no steam boiler, no LPG, no chilling plant.

At the same time we're taking this system to SIMEI in Milan and entering it into the Innovation Awards for climate mitigation and energy efficiency.

With Italy now opening up as a de-alc market, one of the world's largest wine producers can finally de-alcoholise within their own borders. Logichem's proven technology and sustainability credentials make this the right moment.
The future: optimising the technology, expanding into new territories, and continuing to improve final product quality.
logichem.com
what is next for GoLo de-alcoholisation
what is essence recovery in wine de-alcoholisation

11/06/2026

How do you cut a winery's energy bill by 60%?

With a heat pump that nobody had built before. Logichem founder Schalk Pienaar explains it simply: a fridge extracts heat from inside and pushes it outside. A heat pump does the same thing. Heat naturally flows from hot to cold. If you want to reverse that, you need a pump.

In GoLo, we needed the heat pump to do both jobs at once: provide the energy for boiling and the cooling for condensing. No equipment supplier had ever been asked to do this. We had to work it out from first principles.

The result: 60-70% reduction in energy consumption. 20% of the mechanical energy of competing systems. And the only moving parts in GoLo are the pumps.

This is the innovation that made the world's first fossil-fuel-free de-alcoholisation plant possible.

logichem.com how does a heat pump work in de-alcoholisation
most energy efficient de-alc technology

04/06/2026

How does GoLo actually remove alcohol from wine?
It starts with a gentle boil under vacuum. The most volatile compounds, the aromas you nose in a glass of wine, have the lowest boiling points. They come off first. We capture them.
Then the alcohol comes off. And where GoLo is different: we concentrate that alcohol into a commercially valuable rectified spirit, not a byproduct that needs further processing. The entire process happens in a single pass. No second run through the system. No circulation pump churning the wine. Natural circulation moves the fluid gently through the reboiler. The result: wine treated at lower temperatures, for less time, with less mechanical stress than competing technologies. That's the engineering behind GoLo. Simple in principle. Precise in ex*****on.

logichem.com how does de-alcoholisation work how does GoLo remove alcohol from wine

๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฎ๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐ž ๐๐š๐ซ๐ญ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐’๐จ๐ฆ๐ž๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ง๐  ๐€๐ฐ๐š๐ซ๐-๐–๐ข๐ง๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ .Congratulations to Treasury Wine Estates on taking home the 2026 Hive Award ...
04/06/2026

๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฎ๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐ž ๐๐š๐ซ๐ญ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐’๐จ๐ฆ๐ž๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ง๐  ๐€๐ฐ๐š๐ซ๐-๐–๐ข๐ง๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ .

Congratulations to Treasury Wine Estates on taking home the 2026 Hive Award for Best Technology!

Their new $15 million Barossa Valley de-alcoholisation facility is a genuinely impressive piece of engineering โ€” and we're proud that our GoLoโ„ข technology is part of it. Great to see the work recognised.

Link: https://www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au/news/the-hive-awards-2026-best-technology-treasury-wine-estates

01/06/2026

This month we told the GoLo story.
A phone call that led to a patented technology. A 50-litre pilot that grew to 4,000 litres per hour. A heat pump nobody asked for that won a world-first award. And a philosophy that puts the winemaker's craft at the centre.

Four posts. One story. The foundation of everything that comes next.

Next month: we go deeper into how GoLo actually works. The process. The science. The advantage.
logichem.com what is GoLo de-alcoholisation technology how does GoLo wine de-alc work

28/05/2026

What separates a technology company from an equipment supplier?
Logichem founder Schalk Pienaar puts it simply: "We build the Stradivarius. You make the music."

Logichem has no winemakers on staff. They don't pretend to know your wine better than you do. They build the instrument - and they build it to be the best available.

His advice to winemakers evaluating de-alcoholisation technology: Don't be seduced by price or simple claims. "Our technology is better" means nothing without proof. Ask: more efficient than what? What does "third generation" offer that the previous version didn't? Interrogate the claims. Get them quantified. Check references.

If they can't provide either, be cautious. Because if you invest in the wrong technology, your competitors that didn't will walk right past you. logichem.com how to evaluate de-alcoholisation technology what should winemakers look for in de-alc equipment

21/05/2026

What happens when an innovation nobody asked for wins a world-first award?

For years, Logichem's heat pump concept sat undeveloped. The company was focused on getting GoLo into the de-alc market. The heat pump was mentioned casually to an Australian client, and they were unusually interested.

The problem: nobody had built a dual-duty heat pump for vacuum distillation before. The component suppliers couldn't help. Logichem had to figure it out from first principles. The result: 60-70% reduction in energy consumption. 20% of the mechanical energy of competing systems.

And in 2024, the world's first fossil-fuel-free de-alcoholisation plant - powered by GoLo and the heat pump - won the IWSC Low and No Producer Trophy. Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs start as orphans.

logichem.com how does a heat pump reduce energy in de-alcoholisation what is the most energy efficient de-alc system

14/05/2026

How big can de-alcoholisation get?

In 2012, Logichem built a 50-litre pilot plant. Just enough to prove the concept. Then came a 300-litre mobile unit - small enough to drive to a winery, so the winemaker never loses sight of their wine. Then 1,000 litres. Then 2,200. Then the request that changed everything: 4,000 litres per hour.

The largest GoLo ever built. Now shipping to France. After our first third-party sale to the biggest winery in France, we had almost an avalanche. Australia. Spain. South Africa. South America.

Four continents. 16 systems and counting. Scale isn't just engineering. It's proof of demand. logichem.com

how big are de-alcoholisation systems? can you do mobile de-alcoholisation at a winery?

07/05/2026

How did GoLo technology begin? Not in a boardroom. Not with a business plan.

With a phone call. A client asked Logichem founder Schalk Pienaar if he had a pilot plant that could do vacuum distillation on wine.He didn't. But with 25 years of spirits distillation behind him, he knew he could build one.

Two seasons of research. A patented single-pass process. A licensing deal with the world's leading alcohol adjustment company. That phone call led to a technology now installed across four continents.

This is the GoLo origin story.
logichem.com how did GoLo wine de-alcoholisation technology start what is single-pass vacuum distillation for wine

Address

Rheebok Close, Wellington Industrial Park
Wellington
7655

Opening Hours

Monday 08:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 08:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 08:00 - 17:00
Thursday 08:00 - 17:00
Friday 08:00 - 15:00

Telephone

+27 21 873 6499

Website

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