Speaking at IFFA in Frankfurt, CEO Hans-Joachim Boekstegers and CTO/COO Guido Spix gave an update on the business.
“Contrary to the general market trend, our business continues to develop relatively well,” explained Boekstegers. “We are seeing very positive development in all the company's business units, and our production capacity is fully utilised. With a turnover of around €1.1 billion, the Multivac Group was able to achieve in 2018 a growth in turnover of 8.5% over the previous year. Despite many economic and political uncertainties, we are expecting in the current business year an increase in turnover in the region of 10%.”
In 2018, a new Multivac production site in Bulgaria was put into operation. It comprises a factory building for the production of parts for the group, as well as a state-of-the-art logistics centre, a training facility and an administration building.
A new Centre of Excellence for slicers and automation solutions is currently under construction at Multivac’s Wolfertschwenden site, which is due for completion in 2020.
At the Bruckmühl site, the administration and production for the Multivac daughter company TVI will be concentrated on around 9,000 square metres on a greenfield site. Currently, a new Centre of Excellence for meat portioning machines is being built there that is also due to be put into operation in 2020. One of the highlights mentioned by the business will be the Application Centre designed to customer requirements.
Multivac is also currently planning to manufacture packaging machines and peripheral components in Taicang, China. In addition to manufacturing, the facility will also have development and design departments. The start of production is planned for the end of 2019.
Packaging sustainability
The business also took the time to explain the work being done to reduce packaging waste.
“In the current debate about plastic packs there are some important aspects, which are often not taken into consideration,” said Boekstegers. “Plastic packs can for example extend the shelf life of food products considerably and contribute to less food waste.
“Packaging concepts have to take the entire life cycle of a pack into account and also focus on the aspect of product protection. Our machines are designed in such a way, that even today they can al-ready run alternative packaging materials or at least be converted to run them. Thanks to our many years of experience in packaging technology, we are able to offer our customers added value by supporting them in developing sustainable packaging, which provides maximum product protection with the minimum pack footprint.”
Product innovation
Spix also gave an overview of the product highlights on the Multivac exhibition stand: “Digitalisation is a fundamental component for Multivac in the development of new products, and it is therefore systematically incorporated into all packaging solutions. Following our presentation of the RX 4.0 thermoforming packaging machine at Interpack in 2017, we are now showing the TX 710 traysealer, which is a further machine in the X-line series. The features of this new traysealer are a robust ma-chine concept and an intelligent control system, which together provide the maximum flexibility, output and reliability.”