Griesson - de Beukelaer makes record-breaking investments

The company has poured a total of more than € 100 m into the expansion of its production location in the Thuringian town of Kahla with the aim of ultimately achieving total capacity of around 100,000 tonnes annually. An additional € 15 m is going into the Griesson factories in Polch and Wurzen.

In 2018 the company slightly increased its revenues up to € 506.4 m over the 2017 figure of € 500.1 m. In the 2018 fiscal year GdB‘s 2,052 employees produced a total of 145,523 tonnes of baked goods. 45% of the company‘s production is currently exported to a total of 35 countries, with the strongest sales markets consisting of France and the USA. GdB is planning to move all of its production activities from its factory in the city of Kempen where its ”Prinzen Rolle” product has been manufactured since 1955 to Thuringia by the end of 2020.

Since its takeover last year of the majority holdings in the Dutch family-run company Banket­bakkerij Nora B.V. in the city of Maastricht, GdB will continue to be in ­possession of four production locations. “Nora acts independently on the market and under Rudy Raeven‘s supervision it produces a broad range of fine baked products using the very latest facilities,” says Andreas Nickenig, CEO at GdB, in explaining the acquisition.

The management team has also set ambitious targets for the current year. Nickenig reports, ”In 2019 we want to grow more strongly. We‘ve set our growth target at 5%”. And the current year has started off very well. Consumers have responded very positively to the resealable Prinzen Rolle packaging. The firm head has described the new Prinzen Rolle Cremys ”well above expectations”.