Kurier Nr. 92 - Hochdorf Nutritec AG

20 HocHdorf
english page
eDiTorial agenDa
Significant growth in the infant formula area
dear employees, investors and business
partners
The HOCHDORF Group is operating in
difficult economic circumstances – as are
many other companies too. This means
exploiting existing opportunities in a stra-
tegic way. To do this, HOCHDORF employees
can refer to the recently sharpened
strategy and to this year’s objectives and
this is exactly what they are doing.
this improved strategy is encapsulated in the
german acronym “EIWIS”. this acronym
comprises the first letter of the german words
for Expert, Innovation, Growth, Internationalisation
and Specialisms.
Experts never stop learning
our employees never stop learning either.
this is essential if we are to continue to be
successful as specialists in our area. one
example of this is, when many of our employees
improved their skills on the 6 th Hygiene
day (see article on page 13). several internal
training and further development courses
have also been organised on existing or new
equipment and parts. We detail some of our
training and further development courses on
our intranet pages. HocHdorf nutricare
ltd. developers are working on a project with
niZo food research to further improve solubility
and powder structure. Meanwhile,
managers have also improved their skills in
the area of recruitment excellence at the
HocHdorf Management academy and
some employees are also attending further
development courses externally.
Innovation is essential
the main thrust of the project with niZo food
research is to achieve new, innovative
process steps in producing infant formula.
for HocHdorf, innovation means more than
just product innovation. Process and service
innovation are every bit as important for us as
they go hand in hand with our new products.
nonetheless, the group has had plenty of
success in the area of product innovation. for
instance, HocHdorf nutrifood ltd. has
recently begun selling high­quality olive oil
powder under the alia brand. You can find
out about the complexity of producing these
products in the article on page 9.
We are also working with new equipment to
provide added value in supplying our
customers with special milk and whey
products in accordance with their requirements.
these applications enable us to
acquire new customers and break into new,
attractive markets.
Peak values – but still space and capacity
for Growth
in March we processed 42.23 million kg of
milk and whey – a greater monthly amount
than ever before. and we surpassed this peak
value by producing 43.76 million kg in april.
despite posting our highest ever figures for
these two months, there is still potential for
even greater growth. optimisation, particularly
in production lines and product ranges,
will lead to a substantial increase in our peak
figures. We were able to achieve these figures
this year mainly because of the new, highperformance
separators, the 100% deployment
of ultra­filtration for milk and whey and
the targeted use of the spray tower line 8 for
milk powder. after intensive months of milk
production in March, april and May, there is
still potential for growth in the months to
come.
We are delighted at the current growth shown
by HocHdorf nutricare ltd. in the first five
months of the year the company sold around
1,000 tonnes of infant formula per month.
this is equivalent to a growth of around 60
per cent compared to the previous year. We
also made our first product sales in Peru,
Mauritania and Yemen. this means that
HocHdorf infant formula is now sold in
some 30 countries. the product registration
process is also ongoing in many other
countries (see article on page 18).
the successful Brc audit at our Medeikiai
plant also links in with the topic of growth (see
the article on page 17). the Brc label now
allows it to focus on acquiring new customers
and cracking new markets. the plant will also
be extended for this purpose: there is
sufficient land in Medeikiai and the milk
production (number of cows) in lithuania also
has sufficient potential for growth.
Successful Internationalisation
as we have already mentioned, HocHdorf
nutricare ltd. has recently begun selling its
products in Peru, Mauritania and Yemen.
HocHdorf nutrifood ltd. has also been
able to place the ViogerM® wheat germ
products in products abroad (see article on
page 19). We are delighted with our current
export results and want to achieve even more
by the end of the year.
Specialisation breeds success
growth and internationalisation can only be
successful if we specialise. this also applies
to all the HocHdorf development and sales
companies. With infant formula, HocHdorf
nutricare ltd. is already an active market
player with a very specific product. However,
the same principle applies here too: providing
added value with specialist products.
HocHdorf swiss Milk ltd. is working
on special products in the area of milk
2012
11./12./13. August 2012
Töffausflug
28. August 2012
Kommunikation Halbjahreszahlen
21. September 2012
BEST PARTNER-Fest
informationsversammlungen
für die Mitarbeitenden:
29. August 2012
13. Dezember 2012
2013
17. April 2013
Bilanzmedienkonferenz
17. Mai 2013
Generalversammlung
derivatives. HocHdorf nutrifood ltd.
has developed a speciality product in its
alia olive oil powder that now has to prove
its worth on the market. HocHdorf nutri­
medical ltd., founded in december 2011, will
also focus its range exclusively on specialist
products with higher added value. We are
expecting our first sales in medical nutrition
products in the fourth quarter of this year.
Profitability is a key objective
our key objective is a sustained improvement
in profitability for the 2012 business year.
However, the extremely volatile economic
situation in the eu and the resulting currency
turbulence is undermining profitability. in the
initial months the focus of our attention has
been, among other things, on achieving larger
production batches. the sales companies
and production are working hand­in­hand in
this area. HocHdorf nutricare, for instance,
has managed to persuade customers to
switch to “standard formulations”.
Thanks to everyone
i would like to take this opportunity to offer
our employees my sincere thanks for their
commitment to the Best Partner principle.
We achieved exceptional production results in
March and april in particular. i like to thank
our customers for their continued loyalty and
valuable input. it is the productive partnership
with our customers that enables us to
continue to improve our products and to
launch new product innovations. i would also
like to thank our shareholders for their
confidence in us. the HocHdorf group is
on a solid footing and well positioned for the
challenges ahead. in the spirit of our Best
Partner principle, the board of directors,
the management team and our employees are
all committed to making daily improvements
in competitiveness and to long­term stability
– to the benefit of all stakeholders. the
HocHdorf group is on the right track.
Damian Henzi
CEO HOCHDORF Group