German baby food and dairy co-operative Humana Milchunion has completed construction of one of Europe’s biggest automated storage facilities for cheese and a new cheese slicing and packaging plant in eastern Germany at Altentreptow.
Humana believes the new facilities will put it right up among the best in European cheese marketing.
Sliced cheese sales in 2002 by Humana’s cheese-specialist daughter firm Euro Cheese (brands are Landhof, Golden Cheese, Casarelli) will top the 70,000 tonne mark for the first time, according to the company. Humana is currently number three in the German dairy league in terms of turnover. The co-operative’s achievements last year included sales representing 15% of the national market for sliced cheese.
Just over 13% of all cheese production is now exported, a trade that has helped boost the Humana total turnover from r1.7 billion in 2000 to an estimated r2 billion last year.
Steady investment and expansion in 2001 and 2002 – the company’s yogurt exports to Russia now represent 21% of all German exports in this sector to that country – has not stopped Humana from continuing its consolidation programme in Germany. Here the company aims to keep products under a few very high-profile labels.
The recently acquired private dairy Borgmann, whose milk products last year supplied around 8% of the Humana turnover, will be merged this year into the much better known Ravensberger label. The brand has been particularly successful in the drinking milk and butter sectors, with 15% of the German market in fresh milk, 17% of the UHT product sector and 16% of butter sales. In specialist sectors, such as premium butter sold in tubs and unsalted butter rolls (pictured), Ravensburger is proving unbeatable in the home market, with 51% and 40% market shares respectively.
Building on success in worldwide marketing of baby and diet foods, the south German dairy co-op has also expanded into the functional foods sector with the launch last year of Humana Vital, a new label for foods based mainly on whey.