Cooperating with discount shops helps Tönnies increase turnover. Despite having taken over Barfuss GmbH, Westfleisch still ranks third

A list of the “2004 top 10 slaughter companies” was published by the Interessengemeinschaft der Schweinehalter Nord-Westdeutschland e. V. (ISN) right at the beginning of the New Year. When summarizing the survey results, Andreas Beckhove, ISN market expert, said that “an enormous rearrangement of market shares was characteristic for the slaughter industry in 2004”.

With regard to the B&C Tönnies slaughter company at Rheda-Wiedenbrück, for instance, an increased number of slaughters could be observed last year. As many as 6.9 million pigs were slaughtered by them in 2004. According to Beckhove, this B&C succeeding to make such giant leap forwards was caused, above all, by the intense cooperation with the leading discount shops and by their entering into the fresh meat business.

The Bestmeat group of companies, however, with their head offices at Best (Netherlands) and Düsseldorf (Germany) was able to just maintain their market share of about 7.5 million carcass pigs at the 2003 level. It is true that this way Bestmeat continues to be top of the list, but the competitor at Rheda-Wiedenbrück was able to considerably diminish the distance. With regard to the stagnating number of pig slaughters it was assumed that integrating the German subsidiaries NFZ (CG Nordfleisch AG) and A. Moksel AG was the responsible factor.

Westfleisch eG at Münster remain number 3 on the “top 10” listing. About 5.5 million pigs were slaughtered by this cooperative. The group’s last year’s growth mainly resulted from merging with Barfuss GmbH at Oer-Erkenschwick.

Meanwhile, more than 60 percent of all pig slaughters in Germany are being carried out by the “top 10” companies.

Beckhove was convinced enough to say that “we are expecting further structural changes in the German slaughter industry in 2005 by which market shares will be rearranged anew”.