MUH of Germany records turnover boost

The year 2010 is hailed as a milestone in the 40-year history of the Milch-Union Hocheifel (MUH) cooperative dairy, with turnover soaring by 16% to a record EUR613m. MUH has already established itself as one of the most international of regional EU dairies, with farmers from Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg delivering a total 1.24 billion kg milk in 2010 (+ 7.8%). Products sell in 45 countries.

Unlike most of its competitors in the German market, MUH has never invested significantly in cheese, concentrating more on drinking milk (UHT, ESL, lactose-free and organically produced) and dairy drink mixes plus condensed milk and cream products.

“Lately, the cheese makers have had an advantage over the specialist drinking milk dairies,” admits MD for marketing Winfried Meier. “But we have managed to keep our sales performance on foreign markets stable.” The secret? Meier says success in this sector had a lot to do with the marketing of regional products, catering for the health-related sectors with, for instance, lactose-free drinks, and offering a good range of organically produced milk products. Most important export market for MUH in 2010 was France with a 25% increase in business bringing in a total EUR56m. Furthering the marketing scope for regional dairy products has seen transport, filling and packing cooperation between MUH and the other important dairy from the Eifel Mountain borderlands, Schwalbchen (2010 turnover EUR179m).

MUH invested EUR28m in expanding capacity during 2010.