At Anuga FoodTec the Group Presidents Christian Traumann (CEO) and Dr Tobias Richter (CSO) gave an overview of the business development of the MULTIVAC Group and its innovations on display at the trade fair. Exhibiting at the trade fair under the motto “Multiply Your Value“, the Group is showing its wide range of innovative processing and packaging solutions for the food industry. The focus is on its wide product range for slicing and portioning, as well as integrated lines, which contribute significantly to making production processes efficient and resource-saving thanks to their high level of automation and digitalization.

Multiply Your Value – tailored solutions for challenging times

Despite the difficult economic situation, the MULTIVAC Group was able to achieve a stable turnover of around 1.5 billion euros in the previous year. The number of employees increased by around two percent to approx. 7,200 worldwide. “Industry continues to be confronted with many different challenges – whether it is demographic change, increasing regulation, or rising costs for energy and raw materials,” explained Christian Traumann. “In order to be able to offer some relief, we as a global supplier of packaging and processing solutions want to offer our customers real added value. This means that with this understanding of our role, we are not only providers of machines, but also long-term partners alongside our customers, helping them to tackle the challenges of our times.”

As a technology leader, MULTIVAC wants to help shape the future. This requires the company to continue driving forward the development of future-proof solutions for efficient food processing and packaging. In order to be successful over the long term, the MULTIVAC Group is continuing to invest, both locally and globally: “At the end of 2023 we opened a new production site in India, so that we can offer even better support to our customers in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, thanks to local proximity and shorter delivery times,” said Christian Traumann. “At our Allgäu headquarters we have recently begun the construction of a second production factory, which will be finished at the end of 2025. Thanks to the latest production technology and a high degree of automation, this new factory will significantly increase our output capacity in parts manufacturing and spare parts logistics. This year a new production building for our Slicing Business Unit will go into operation at our site in Buchenau. And by 2027 there will also be new company headquarters for FRITSCH in Franconia, where in future all our company's activities in dough machine manufacture will be combined on one site.”

The Group is also embarking on new areas of business. For example, MULTIVAC is investing some ten million euros as an associate partner in AgriFoodTech Venture, which was founded by BayWa Venture GmbH, Bindewald and Gutting Mühlengruppe as well as MULTIVAC. The focus of the alliance is on the financing of start-ups, which use new technology to make food production and packaging more efficient and at the same time more sustainable.

Product innovations: efficient, sustainable, from one source

“I am particularly proud of the fact, that at the trade fair we are presenting for the first time our wide product range for slicing and portioning – from wafer-thin cut products to bone-in steaks,” explained Dr Tobias Richter. “The expanded slicing range, combined with our packaging machines, inspection, labelling and automation systems, now enables us to provide complete solutions for the widest range of output requirements and customer applications. With the addition of the new Professional series, we can now also offer small and medium-sized businesses a range of cost-effective solutions, which serve as an entry-level into industrial-scale slicing, and which can be used as a stand-alone version or integrated into a complete line. The new slicers of the Advanced and Performance series are designed for industrial-scale slicing with medium to high output quantities, and which is integrated into a complete line solution. The GMS 1000 portioning machine from TVI expands our range of meat portioning solutions in the medium-sized industrial sector and sets a new benchmark in the meat industry. Thanks to its exact 3D forming and high level of pressing force, the portioning machine achieves the optimum product yield and highest possible return. At the trade fair, we are showing a high-output portioning line, which, in addition to the GMS 1000, also includes an R3 thermoforming packaging machine and labeling solutions."

At the trade fair, the MULTIVAC Group is also exhibiting its expanded range of cross-web labelers, as well as MULTIVAC TopCLOSE, an innovative solution for the closure sealing of fruit trays – simple, sustainable, attractive, and entirely without any packaging machine.

“Other highlights of the trade fair are our comprehensive expertise in automation, which we are demonstrating with several fully automatic lines from one source,” said Dr Tobias Richter in summary. “When it comes to automation and digitalization, the food sector is a sleeping giant, which is slowly waking up. The pandemic has caused many companies to rethink. For many of our customers now, automation means being able to produce reliably even at times of crisis, thereby ensuring that their competitiveness is maintained.” So that they can make this entry into automation as smooth as possible, MULTIVAC offers integrated solutions from one source – with machines that are tailored to each other, which can be put into service quickly, and which are easy to maintain. Thanks to intuitive control via the MULTIVAC HMI and MULTIVAC Line Control throughout the whole line, only very few operators are required, and they can be trained with short induction times.