"Doubling business in two years"

In the first six months of 2021, the sales of the Seitz Group increased to over 24.2 mio euros from 18.9 mio in the previous year. This equates to growth of 28 per cent. "We have recorded the strongest first six months of the year in sales in our company's history," says Max Graf Kerssenbrock delightedly. He heads the management team and is managing partner of the Seitz Group alongside Thomas Suwelack.
The Fleischeslust brand alone grew by 22 per cent in the first half of the year compared with the same period in the previous year. The biggest customer, according to Kerssenbrock, is the speciality trade in Germany and abroad, accounting for nearly 70 per cent of sales. Seitz's private label business, which is responsible for three quarters of overall sales, also makes a positive contribution to the growth of the group.
The manager expects that the corporate group will achieve overall sales of 48 mio euros by the end of the year. "We would thus double our business within two years," says Kerssenbrock.
By the end of last year the group had instigated an efficiency programme and expanded production capacity at its headquarters in Langwedel in Lower Saxony, close to Bremen. The programme included combining marketing, production and logistics in the north of Germany. "We wanted to shorten the routes to our customers and service partners and speed up delivery times," says Kerssenbrock, explaining the corporate strategy, which also includes environmental goals.

Moving the logistics activities alone, which were established at Fleischeslust in Waldkirchen for historical reasons, is expected to save around 300 truck journeys a year. The majority of downstream jobs, such as the labelling of cans and sausages produced in Langwedel, were hitherto performed at the plant in Lower Bavaria, roughly 800 kilometres away. "By the end of the year, we will have moved all the activities based there to Langwedel and bring the commuting to an end," says Kerssenbrock, who hopes this will yield a much better carbon footprint. In this stage, the frozen food logistics of the raw food line will also move from Fleischeslust to northern Germany.
"We will expand the branded and private label business further and increase our export business," adds Kerssenbrock, looking forward to next year…