The Stern-Wywiol Gruppe achieved a turnover of €400m in 2013. With this figure, the group of companies said that it was able to stabilise its development on a high level after recent growth rates of 20%. Thanks to investments in research and development and the expansion of its international activities, Stern-Wywiol says that the enterprise is well set up in the growing market for food and feed ingredients. At 850, the number of persons employed by the group also remained unchanged in 2013.
The Stern-Wywiol Gruppe consists of eleven independent specialist companies that develop, produce and distribute functional ingredients for food and animal nutrition, including Hydrosol, Mühlenchemie, SternMaid, Sternchemie, SternEnzym, Herza Schokolade and Berg+Schmidt. Each of the companies has specific competence in a particular field, for example bakery or dairy products, deli foods, meat, fish, chocolate, flavourings, lecithin, enzymes or vitamins.
“In the market for food and feed, which is expanding worldwide, our advantage over the major corporations lies in providing advice on applications, in closeness to the customer, individual product solutions and a high level of mobility on the part of our employees”, said Torsten Wywiol, who manages the holding company as its CEO.
According to Stern-Wywiol, the research and development department forms the heart of the group, where the various ingredients divisions pool their expertise under one roof at their own technology centre. On the outskirts of Hamburg, over 70 applications technologists and research scientists develop the solutions of tomorrow. Last year the group invested €7m in extending the R&D facilities. Besides the enlargement of the trial bakery and the dairy and deli food laboratory, a new enzyme laboratory was set up.
“In order to test the functionality of active ingredients, we produce the foods on our pilot plant with equipment similar to that used by our customers on a commercial scale. For that we have installed state-of-the-art machines and testing units,” Wywiol said. The number of training events and trials increased by 35 percent compared to the previous year.
Last year, the company said, there was vigorous demand for new developments in the field of stabilising systems for trendy convenience products, dairy products and deli foods, for new enzyme complexes for bakery products and pasta and for sunflower lecithin and powdered deoiled lecithins. A new pilot plant for pasta is also said to be stimulating growth in the field of enzymes for pasta and noodles. At Herza Schokolade, a company specialising in functional chocolate pieces for further processing and in functional bars, a new, fully automated bar production line greatly increased capacity and productivity.
With an export share of 85 percent, the eleven specialist firms supply customers in over 100 countries. They are supported by 16 foreign affiliates, some of which have research and production capacities of their own. The opening of production facilities in Turkey and India for baking and flour improvers and in Singapore and Malaysia for lecithin and palm oil fractions were milestones in the group’s international expansion last year, the company said.
“However, because of delays in commissioning the plant we were unable to achieve the targeted results in 2013,” Wywiol said.
The group says that it is continuing its international orientation. For example, the affiliate SternMaid America is building a plant in Aurora, near Chicago. SternMaid Germany has its production facility in Wittenburg (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania) and operates as a contract manufacturer for the processing, drying, blending and filling of food ingredients and food supplements. The company says that it is in demand as a service provider to both SMEs and major enterprises throughout Europe. The new plant in Aurora is claimed to be one of the most modern of its kind in the USA. A blending line and a small-unit packaging line, both fully automated, are available with an area of 3,000 m², permitting blending capacities of about 8,000 tonnes a year. At the production site in Wittenburg, too, the Stern-Wywiol Gruppe said that it has invested €16m in order to open up new business fields in the sphere of fluid-bed technology for food and pharmaceutical ingredients. Further investments are planned for the coming years in order to meet the increasing demand for contract manufacturing of new, functional products in the food and pharmaceutical industries.
“As an enterprise operating internationally we are dependent on political stability in our target markets,” concluded Wywiol. “In many important regions like Africa, South America and Russia, there was not always the necessary stability last year. That makes forecasts difficult. But certainly “convenience” in food and animal nutrition will remain a growing market worldwide. In food alone, the world market is estimated at US$35 to 40 trillion. We are in a segment with a future, in which we will continually enhance the services we offer. As a family business we are not looking for short-term returns.”
