MULTIVAC continues on its successful course contrary to other trends in the market. The machine builder's production capacity is at full stretch, and all the company's business units are showing positive development.
This was the message from Hans-Joachim Boekstegers, Director and CEO of MULTIVAC, at Friday's press conference at interpack in Düsseldorf. Together with the other Managing Directors of MULTIVAC, Guido Spix (CTO) and Christian Traumann (CFO), he greeted the many domestic and foreign journalists on the occasion of the traditional press breakfast at the start of the trade fair.
The number of employees in the Group increased to 5,065 worldwide, while the turnover in 2016 rose to 952 million euros, a 7.1 percent in-crease over the previous year. The German part of the Group achieved a turnover of 395 million euros in 2016, which equates to an increase of 7.0 percent over 2015.
Investment“We are continuing to systematically invest in the expansion of our ser-vices and production capacity,” explained Hans-Joachim Boekstegers. “The latest members of our Group are the subsidiaries in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, Thailand and Uzbekistan. We have also built a new Sales and Service Hub in Charlotte, USA. The over-all number of staff employed in our Sales and Service network world-wide has risen by approximately ten percent.”
The current investment in the company's production facilities includes a new Logistics Center and office building at the Group's headquarters, a new factory in the USA, a new production site in Bulgaria and, last but not least, a new production hall in Austria. In addition to this, MULTIVAC is also further investing in machinery and equipment at its existing loca-tions, in order to be able to increase its capacity.
On 1 January 2017 the MULTIVAC Sales and Service subsidiary in Ger-many was founded. This is now a regular subsidiary of MULTIVAC Sepp Haggenmüller SE & Co. KG and belongs to the German part of the Group.
Widening the product range The portfolio is being continually expanded. For example, MULTIVAC is cooperating closely with TVI Produktion und Entwicklung GmbH and ac-quired a share of the company in January. TVI offers a wide range of in-novative solutions in the sector of meat portioning and processing equipment. MULTIVAC and TVI complement each other ideally, so that customers in the meat-processing industry receive perfect service and support. As part of their joint expansion plans, the two companies are investing in a new building, which will house a production facility and of-fices, and which is due to open in Bruckmühl at the end of this year.
MULTIVAC is completing a strategic alliance with Meyn Food Processing Technology B.V. and Cabinplant A/S. The objective is to offer food pro-ducers joint solutions, ranging from processing, filling and weighing of products right through to packaging, at a level of combined quality that has never previously been available on the market. The cooperation comprises two agreements: firstly, cooperation between Meyn, Cabinplant and MULTIVAC with a focus on poultry processing, and sec-ondly cooperation between Cabinplant and MULTIVAC in regard to pro-jects and lines for ready meals, fish and meat.
Product highlights and innovationsGuido Spix also presented some of the many product innovations, in-cluding the G 700 traysealer for the highly efficient packing of ready meals and convenience products, as well as a thermoforming packaging line for producing portion packs with individual pack formats and vari-ous batch sizes, and finally a thermoforming packaging solution for sliced products. At interpack MULTIVAC is presenting for the medical in-dustry an automated packaging line for syringes, which is characterised by its high level of flexibility when packing products in different formats and various materials.
With its groundbreaking X-line, MULTIVAC has developed a new genera-tion of thermoforming packaging machines, which set new standards in the market. Thanks to complete digitalisation, a comprehensive sensor system and interaction with the MULTIVAC Cloud, the X-line offers maxi-mum packaging reliability, even more consistent pack quality and a higher level of process speed, as well as operation that is even easier and more reliable.
MULTIVAC's new home is the professional way of vacuuming food in pri-vate households. It is equipped with a maintenance-free vacuum pump and has been given the IF Design Award 2017. The market launch takes place at interpack; initially it is only available in Germany, exclusively via the MULTIVAC Webshop.
ProspectsDespite the current political challenges and uncertainties - such as the ef-fects of terrorism on the world economy, the impact of Brexit and the developments in Turkey - those at MULTIVAC look optimistically towards the future. “In 2017 we are reckoning on turnover growth of around ten percent,” says Hans-Joachim Boekstegers in summary. “Currently Austral-ia, New Zealand, Japan, the US and France are good markets for us.”
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