Business News
Satisfied with 2008 – BEHN + BATES is confident of positive development in 2009
Wednesday 04. March 2009 - BEHN + BATES' business development was positive in 2008. Despite all negative messages emitted by the global economy the German company located in Münster/Westphalia is optimistic with regard to its business development in 2009 even more as it succeeded in entering the Norwegian, Nigerian and Australian food markets in the last 2 years.
In 2008 BEHN + BATES looked back on its 75th company existence celebrated with different events and presentations. In April 2008 the new open-mouth bag packing system ORBIS was presented to the world public. The turnover was increased by 5.8 % to 8 million EUR in 2008. The number of orders in execution is satisfying and assures a good workload in the first half of 2009.
Business development was extremely positive in Norway and Nigeria. After continuous and constant marketing efforts, two Norwegian milling companies decided for the BEHN + BATES technology due to the high-quality machine design and the reliable product packing. The two packing plants delivered for the filling of flours, grit and bran into valve bags consist of pneumatic packers with applicators for the automatic valve bag placing onto the filling spout and ultrasound sealing stations for the tight bag closure directly after the filling process.
The BEHN + BATES technology also convinced the Nigerian cocoa industry. Nigeria is one of the world’s largest cocoa producing countries. Thus, the high-quality product packing according to modern food standards as well as good storage properties of the filled bags are of utmost importance to the Nigerian producers in order to continue ranking among the market leaders. One of the Nigerian cocoa producing companies will install a packing line consisting of an INTEGRA FD 3 and a lorry loader for the packing of cocoa cake. The INTEGRA FD 3 unifies the applying unit as well as the three filling and sealing stations in one dust-tight cabinet and is thus predestined for the hygienic food-grade product filling. In the same company two existing BEHN + BATES filling stations will be modernised and equipped with the latest weighing electronics MEC III for a simple machine operation and optimum filling weights.
Another Nigerian cocoa company will install an auger packer and a gravity packer for the filling of cocoa powder and cocoa cake into valve bags.
Thanks to these orders BEHN + BATES’ position in the international cocoa industry has consolidated. The company continues to be one of the world-wide leading packing machine manufacturers for cocoa products.
In addition, the German producer is glad to execute the first machine order for the Australian sugar industry. The dust-tight INTEGRA design also convinced for this project. In spring 2008 the customer will get an INTEGRA FD 2 with applying unit and two pneumatic packers as well as ultrasound sealing stations for the filling of valve bags.
Moreover, BEHN + BATES benefits from the synergy effects involved by the close cooperation with the parent company HAVER & BOECKER. The clear and sophisticated production structure of the company group leads to the fact that auger packers are only constructed and assembled by the daughter company BEHN + BATES. Thus, a total of three machine orders was executed by BEHN + BATES for the parent company in 2008.
Looking back at 2008 managing director Ralf Hövelmann concludes positively: “2009 will certainly be an economically challenging year. But we are optimistic. In the last years our projects frequently developed anti-cyclically. This tendency begins to show at present, too. Currently, we are working on some interesting projects and hope to succeed in getting the orders in the next few weeks. Our specialisation in the food industry lasting for more than 10 years now bears fruit and makes us clearly stand out from our competitors.”