[Download PDF, 77 KB]   Oktober 2011

 

With the new ”Aktion Tierwohl” products Westfleisch is successfully creating a new market segment – ”taste11” award on the Anuga / Export to all important countries in Asia / ”IceHouse” is establishing itself with frozen convenience / Clean label ”gustopur” for original sausage taste

 

Westfleisch has the future of meat production firmly in view. Doing more for the well-being of animals so that meat products and sausages can be enjoyed with a good conscience – this offer is made by Westfleisch eG, Muenster. With the initiative the association has, as the first company in the sector, defined and set up checkable criteria of animal welfare. Dr Helfried Giesen, the spokes-man of the managing board, points out: ”With ‘Aktion Tierwohl’ Westfleisch has set new bench-marks for a careful handling of animals in the sector.” At present, the products are available at about 2,000 trading outlets throughout Germany.
 
Since June of this year, Westfleisch has been successfully establishing a new market segment between QS (Quality scheme for food) and organic quality with a starting range of 17 articles of self-service meat, sausage and ham. ”Aktion Tierwohl” offers a considerable added value for both, retailers and consumers”, as Giesen explains. Meanwhile the first German label that provides improved husbandry conditions for animals and that retailers can order enthuses even sceptics – in fact by attractive sales figures in the test markets.
 

 

Winner of Anuga ”taste11”

The innovative energy of the initiative was also confirmed by winning the ”taste11” award at the Anuga. Out of more than 1,300 suggestions submitted, the assortment of the company has been chosen as the winner in their sector by a competent expert jury.
 
At present, about 100 farmers deliver their animals for the programme, others are ready to follow. Hubert Kelliger, Westfleisch Head of Sales, promises the traders to adapt the product depth to the demand after the successful start.
 
What ”Aktion Tierwohl” makes popular with traders and consumers is the modern idea. The well-being of the animals is steadily being checked and recorded by a method comparable with a control loop. The aim: Doing more for the comfort of animals and offering sausages and meat products which can be enjoyed with a good conscience. By doing so, Westfleisch has approached a common desire of farmers and consumers. With innovative pioneer thinking and doing the German no. 3 meat marketer ensures again and again a growing trust of consumers in meat as valuable food.
 
With the aspiration of conscious sustainability by taking into consideration environmental care, animal welfare, regionality, guaranteed freshness and social responsibility, Westfleisch has been setting benchmarks with its ”Partnership for Quality” for years. ”The qualitative requirements, and the moral ones as well, of our products increase noticeably and continuously”, says Giesen. For example, export deals in Western Europe and especially in Scandinavia often require standards of animal welfare and human welfare. 

 

 

Retailers and consumers like the smiley

At the Westfleisch stand at the Anuga Meat, the yellow ”Aktion Tierwohl”-smiley is conspicuously turning around. The smiley also decorates the fresh green coloured packs. The only German label for verifiably improved keeping conditions of animals convinces retailers and traders as well as consumers after only four months on the market. But not only in Germany. In Scandinavia the Westfleisch quality products are also labelled with the yellow signet. “By recent opinion polls, we feel confirmed in our decision to offer the consumer products which combine modern agriculture and animal comfort”, explains Giesen.
 
As a cooperative with a sound equity structure, Westfleisch has a special status on the market as for more than 20 years. The association possesses a controlled base of raw materials in terms of co-operation contracts with farmers in Northwest Germany and the bordering Netherlands. Currently, 70 to 80 % of the total of 6.5 million slaughter pigs, 320,000 bulls, cows and heifers and almost 50,000 slaughter calves per year origin from contractually bound co-operating farms. The meat centres in Erkenschwick, Coesfeld, Hamm, Paderborn and Luebbecke all are situated right in the heart of the meat industry of Central Europe.

 

 
Growing export ensures increasing sales

The quality meat from the controlled production amounts to more than 40 per cent of the exports of the Westfleisch-Group. The continuously growing exports to Asia ensure sales and earnings. In 2010, a turnover of 1.93 billion Euros could be achieved. The group’s companies export to all the important countries in Asia. Africa has also been kept in mind by the company for a long time. During the past year, Westfleisch was able to increase the exports to Eastern Europe and Russia by more than 50 per cent in close co-operation with the retailers. Egbert Klokkers, Head of Exports Eastern Europe/Asia, looks confidently into the future: ”We reach all the cities of a million people west of the Ural Mountains regularly.”
 
The Benelux countries constitute the most important sales markets for Westfleisch. In 2010, Westfleisch set up a successfully working joint venture with Dawn Meats, an established market expert in France. In March of this year, ”Westfleisch Nordic AB”, a sales office in Stockholm, was opened. It sells the quality meat from Westphalia directly to big customers in Scandinavia successfully. In spite of the monetary crisis, the exports to Greece are ”sound” and even more pork is delivered to retailers in Italy.

 

 

Premium speciality without additives

The refining subsidiaries Gustoland and WestfalenLand, which belong to Westfleisch, have got special offers regarding sausage and meat products to fulfil the desires of responsible consumers. The sausage experts from Gustoland/Erkenschwick offer not only the well-known wide range of products, but also the premium speciality ”gustopur”, a brand new clean label product range. Additives are left out when producing the classic kinds of sausage and raw materials of a particularly high quality are selected. The idea is rounded up by a new, stylish packaging. The pure product, thoroughly authentic, is the clear message from ”gustopur” to the responsible consumer.

 

 

IceHouse established as a furnisher of labelled goods

At WestfalenLand ”minutes become seconds”: At the Anuga, the refining company located in Muenster and member of the Westfleisch-Group presents innovatively cut ”second steaks” of fresh beef and with a technologically improved “Food Appeal”.

Special attention is paid to the subsidiary company IceHouse Frozen Convenience. The range of products varies from hash products to ready meals for retailers and a complete service package around the raw material ready to process for industrial clients. Within one year, the young company has established itself as a furnisher for brand name industries, aided by ultramodern technique and a profound knowledge about the valuable raw material meat.

 

 

www.aktion-tierwohl.de

www.westfalenland.de

www.icehouse-convenience.de

www.gustoland.de