The PHW Group is a German

family business A family business is a commercial organization in which decision-making is influenced by multiple generations of a family, related by Consanguinity , blood, marriage or adoption, who has both the ability to influence the vision of the business a ...

in the

meat industry The meat industry are the people and companies engaged in modern industrialized livestock agriculture for the production, packing, preservation and marketing of meat (in contrast to dairy products, wool, etc.). In economics, the meat industry is ...

that operates internationally. Its core business is meat processing of

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting animal products such as meat, Eggs as food, eggs or feathers. The practice of animal husbandry, raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typ ...

. It is the largest company of the poultry industry in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and the fourth-largest in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. The PHW Group is headquartered in Visbek-Rechterfeld in the Oldenburg Münsterland region, Germany.

Structure

The PHW Group is made up of two parent companies: the ''Erste Paul-Heinz Wesjohann GmbH & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft'' with €2,232.5 million in sales, and the ''Zweite Paul-Heinz Wesjohann GmbH & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft'' with €585.8 million in sales in the 2020/2021 financial year, both based in Rechterfeld.Consolidated financial statement for the fiscal year beginning on July 1, 2020 and ending on June 30, 2021 of Erste Paul-Heinz Wesjohann GmbH & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft, Rechterfeld. Published in Bundesanzeiger on July 14, 2022.Consolidated financial statement for the fiscal year beginning on July 1, 2020 and ending on June 30, 2021 of Zweite Paul-Heinz Wesjohann GmbH & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft, Rechterfeld. Published in Bundesanzeiger on July 28, 2022. Part of the PHW group are several subgroups, among them the ''Lohmann & Co. AG'' based in

Vaduz Vaduz (; or ; High Alemannic pronunciation: [])Hans Stricker, Toni Banzer, Herbert Hilbe: ''Liechtensteiner Namenbuch. Die Orts- und Flurnamen des Fürstentums Liechtenstein.'' Band 2: ''Die Namen der Gemeinden Triesenberg, Vaduz, Schaan.'' ...

Liechtenstein Liechtenstein (, ; ; ), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein ( ), is a Landlocked country#Doubly landlocked, doubly landlocked Swiss Standard German, German-speaking microstate in the Central European Alps, between Austria in the east ...

, which the PHW Group uses for public appearances. The core business area of the PHW Group is poultry production under the

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

''Wiesenhof''. The PHW Group features a strong

vertical integration In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration, also referred to as vertical consolidation, is an arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each ...

and combines large parts of the poultry production chain. These include hatcheries, fattening, the production of feed and

veterinary medicine Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, medical diagnosis, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in non-human animals. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all a ...

, logistics, the slaughtering and

cutting Cutting is the separation or opening of a physical object, into two or more portions, through the application of an acutely directed force. Implements commonly used for wikt:cut, cutting are the knife and saw, or in medicine and science the sca ...

, and the processing and marketing of poultry meat.

Chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

s are the main products processed, along with turkeys and

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family (biology), family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and goose, geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfam ...

s. The PHW Group also owns just under 50 percent of the shares of the WIMEX Group, one of the world's largest suppliers of day old chicks of the ''Cobb'' breed. Additionally, the company has a business sector ''alternative proteins'', which in the fiscal year 2020/2021 made up €16.8 million (0,6% of the total revenue).

History

1932 until 1998: predecessor

In 1932, Paul Wesjohann founded an agricultural trade business with a hatchery in Rechterfeld. The same year but independently, Heinz Lohmann founded a fishmeal factory in

Cuxhaven Cuxhaven (; ) is a town and seat of the Cuxhaven district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town includes the northernmost point of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. Cuxhaven has a footprint o ...

. Both expanded their businesses greatly in the following decades. In 1965, they jointly established a chicken hatchery in Rechterfeld. The sons of Paul Wesjohann, Paul-Heinz and Erich Wesjohann, both entered executive position there. The brothers took over more and more responsibility in the following years. In 1987, the Wesjohann family took over the majority of the

share capital A corporation's share capital, commonly referred to as capital stock in the United States, is the portion of a corporation's equity that has been derived by the issue of shares in the corporation to a shareholder, usually for cash. ''Share ...

of Lohmann's company ''Lohmann & Co. AG'', yielding the ''Lohmann-Wesjohann-Gruppe''. In 1997, the Wesjohann family took over the remaining shares, subsequently owning the consortium completely.

1998: foundation of the PHW Group and the EW Group

In 1998, Paul-Heinz and Erich Wesjohann split up the consortium. Paul-Heinz Wesjohann founded the PHW Group and Erich Wesjohann founded the EW Group. While the EW Group became one of the world's largest poultry-breeding companies, the PHW Group evolved into one of the largest poultry slaughter company in Europe.

1998 until now

The PHW Group subsequently expanded and took over competitors as well as companies in other countries. The acquisitions included the Polish poultry processor ''Drobimexin'' 2001, the Dutch slaughterhouse ''Esbro'' in 2014 and the German duck processor ''Wichmann'' in 2016. In 2018, the PHW Group took over the distribution for Beyond Meat in Germany. Until the end of 2007, the PHW Group sponsored the professional cycling team

Wiesenhof–Felt Team Wiesenhof was a professional continental cycling team based in Germany that participated in UCI Continental Circuits races and when selected as a wildcard to UCI ProTour events. The team was managed by Raphael Schweda with assistance from d ...

. Since 2012, the PHW Group is the main sponsor of the professional football club

SV Werder Bremen Sportverein Werder Bremen von 1899 e. V. (), commonly known as Werder Bremen, Werder or simply Bremen, is a German professional sports club based in Bremen. Founded on 4 February 1899, Werder are best known for their professional association foo ...

. The founder Paul-Heinz Wesjohann handed over the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

position to his son Peter Wesjohann in 2009.

Controversies

Exploitation of workers

The PHW Group was repeatedly criticized for bad working conditions. Im 2007, the

ZDF ZDF (), short for (; ), is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. Launched on 1 April 1963, it is run as an independent nonprofit institution, and was founded by all federal states of Germany ( ...

broadcast the TV format ''Frontal21'' documenting very bad working conditions and wages of Polish migrant workers. In 2011, similar conditions were documented by a ARD TV-reportage.

Animal abuse

Mistreatment of animals in the farms and the

slaughterhouse In livestock agriculture and the meat industry, a slaughterhouse, also called an abattoir (), is a facility where livestock animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a mea ...

s was repeatedly criticized sharply. In 2010, the ARD broadcast a ''Report Mainz'' reportage uncovering serious animal welfare violations at a chicken breeding farm. In another ARD reportage in 2011 and in a Stern TV reportage in 2013, further cases of animal abuse were documented.

Environmental issues

The PHW Group is accused of overexploitation of groundwater resources in the vicinity of its production sites. In Lohne, groundwater levels near a plant of the PHW Group were documented to have dropped by several meters since 1951.

Illegal price agreements and tax evasion

In 2014, the German

Federal Cartel Office The Federal Cartel Office (, ; BKartA) is Germany's national competition regulatory agency. First established in 1958, BKartA comes under the authority of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. The agency is headquartered ...

imposed

fines Fines may refer to: *Fines, Andalusia, Spanish municipality *Fine (penalty) * Fine, a dated term for a Lease#Leases_of_land, premium on a lease of land, a large sum the tenant pays to commute (lessen) the rent throughout the term * Fines, ore or oth ...

totaling approximately €338.5 million on 21

sausage A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs, may be included as fillers or extenders. ...

producers and 33 responsible individuals. The so-called ''Wurstkartell'' (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

for ''sausage cartel'') also involved PHW Group subsidiary ''Wiesenhof Geflügelwurst GmbH & Co. KG'' based in

Rietberg Rietberg () is a town in the district of Gütersloh in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located approximately 10 km south of Gütersloh and 25 km north-west of Paderborn in the region Ostwestfalen-Lippe. The town is l ...

. In 2019, the PHW Group relocated the registered office of ''Lohmann & Co. AG'' to Vaduz in Liechtenstein. The financial services provider ''Ganten Trustees Ltd.'' serves as the representative office, which previously appeared in the

Panama Papers The Panama Papers () are 11.5 million leaked documents (or 2.6 terabytes of data) published beginning April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. These document ...

. The party

Alliance 90/The Greens Alliance 90/The Greens (, ), often simply referred to as Greens (, ), is a Green (politics), green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 by the merger of the Greens (formed in West Germany in 1980) and Alliance 90 (formed in East Ger ...

accused the PHW Group of

tax evasion Tax evasion or tax fraud is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to red ...

Protests

Environmental and

animal rights activist The animal rights movement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that advocates an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, ...

s blocked sites of the PHW Group multiple times in protest. In 2013, activists cemented themselves on the access road to the slaughterhouse in Bogen,

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

. In 2017, animal rights activists and members of citizens' initiatives blocked the slaughterhouse in

Königs Wusterhausen Königs Wusterhausen (; , ) is a town in the Dahme-Spreewald district of the state of Brandenburg in Germany a few kilometers outside Berlin. Geography Geographical location Königs Wusterhausen – locally known as "KW" () or "KWh" ()– lie ...

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

. In 2021, the alliance ''Gemeinsam gegen die Tierindustrie'' blocked the company

headquarters Headquarters (often referred to as HQ) notes the location where most or all of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. The term is used in a wide variety of situations, including private sector corporations, non-profits, mil ...

in Rechterfeld with more than hundred activists.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Meat companies of Germany Poultry companies Animal food manufacturers Companies based in Lower Saxony Food and drink companies established in 1998 Family-owned companies of Germany German companies established in 1998 Vechta (district)