The PHW Group, the largest poultry producer in Germany and the fourth-largest in Europe, announces a newly formed subsidiary for alternative ingredients, stating its focus is now on the expansion of a competitive, value-added chain infrastructure analogous to and complementary to the core business segment of poultry.
PHW’s entrance into the food ingredients market comes with the founding of VTEC Ingredients GmbH which will be based in Engelsberg, Bavaria. “In the future, we want to transfer our successful vertical integration model from the poultry sector to the alternative protein sources business field,” explains Marcus Keitzer, Board Member for Alternative Protein Sources at the PHW Group.
“Through the new partnership, we are now systematically networking our existing PHW infrastructure with upstream stages of the value chain. VTEC Ingredients GmbH will focus on purchasing, biotechnological processing and the manufacture of raw and auxiliary materials for the production of plant-based sausage, meat and fish substitute products. On the one hand, the new company will be closely interlinked with the existing product development departments of the PHW Group, so that the existing product range can be continuously improved and further innovative products can be added to it in the future.
“On the other hand, the existing PHW production plants for sausage, meat and fish substitute products can now be partially supplied by the new sister company. As a result, we can now react even faster and more competently to customer requirements and implement them. With this partnership, we are showing once again that we are consistently following our corporate credo of ‘growth through diversity and foresight’ and that we are implementing the growth of our poultry and alternative protein sources business areas in a complementary manner,” continues Keitzer.
PHW & cultivated poultry
Another noteworthy development from the group is last year’s MoU with Israeli cultivated meat producer SuperMeat to bring cultivated meat products, including chicken, turkey, and duck, to European consumers, pending regulatory approval.
Peter Wesjohann, CEO of Wiesenhof / PHW, went on to urge the EU to expedite the approval of cultivated meat products in Europe, stating in an interview, “If Brussels doesn’t speed things up a bit, we will end up with approval for sale in the USA and Asia, and here in Europe we will once again be too late.”
Further information at www.phw-gruppe.de
