GERMANY – German-based poultry processor, PHW Group has unveiled a newly formed subsidiary for alternative protein ingredients, highlighting its main goal to expand its core poultry business.
The company, which moved into the alternative protein market eight years ago, has established a majority-owned subsidiary called VTEC Ingredients.
According to Marcus Keitzer, a Board Member for Alternative Protein Sources at the PHW Group, PHW’s entrance into the market comes with the founding of the subsidiary which will be based in Engelsberg, Bavaria.
“In the future, we want to transfer our successful vertical integration model from the poultry sector to the alternative protein sources business field,” he explained.
“Through the new partnership, we are now systematically using our existing PHW infrastructure with the upstream stages of the value chain.”
He added that VTEC Ingredients will focus on purchasing, biotechnological processing, and the manufacture of raw and auxiliary materials to produce plant-based sausage, meat, and fish substitute products.
Marcus also revealed that it is also planned that synergy potentials to produce preliminary products for the poultry business area should also be used.
He stressed that on one hand, the new company will be closely interlinked with the existing product development departments of the PHW Group so that the existing product range can be continuously improved and further innovative products can be added to it in the future.
“On the other hand, the existing PHW production plants for sausage, meat, and fish substitute products can now be partially supplied by the new sister company,” he stated.
“As a result, we can now react even faster and more competently to customer requirements and implement them.”
Marcus pointed out that with the partnership, the group is consistently following its corporate credo of ‘growth through diversity and foresight’ and implementing the growth of the poultry and alternative protein sources business areas in a complementary manner.
In addition, the group recently had another noteworthy development from MoU with Israeli cultivated meat producer SuperMeat to bring cultivated meat products, including chicken, turkey, and duck, to European consumers, pending regulatory approval.
Peter Wesjohann, CEO of Wiesenhof / PHW, went on to urge the EU to expedite the approval of cultivated meat products in Europe.
“If Brussels doesn’t speed things up a bit, we will end up with approval for sale in the USA and Asia, and here in Europe we will once again be too late,” he said in an interview.
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