We look back on two eventful years in 2022 and 2023, which were characterized above all by raw material shortages and rising prices for energy, raw materials, packaging and personnel. We have risen to challenges and repositioned ourselves in some areas. However, we were also able to drive forward our sustainability projects and were awarded the Soest Climate Protection Prize for this.
Developments on the raw material markets
As an owner-managed family business, we at Kuchenmeister live short and flexible decision-making paths. In addition, we rely on long-term cooperation with our suppliers. This enabled us to react quickly to market fluctuations, raw material and packaging availability, and energy uncertainties even in a crisis-ridden 2022.
However, there was no easing of the situation on the raw material markets in 2023 either. While prices for a few raw materials, such as dairy products and cereals, are slowly settling at a high level, other raw materials are still affected by very strong fluctuations. For sugar, prices for the coming year are currently being called up to twice as high as in 2022. The price of eggs is also fluctuating very strongly and in some cases rising sharply. This is compounded by unclear availabilities, as the poultry flu will be a major planning uncertainty in laying farms from the fall onwards. Looking at the current developments in cocoa beans, the price peak has not yet been reached either. Here, too, further increases can be expected in the course of the year.
Prices are settling at a high level for some commodities, while other commodity prices are rising sharply again. Some commodities, especially eggs, are almost impossible to calculate, and there is still pronounced volatility and uncertainty in the markets overall.
Soest Climate Protection Award
Kuchenmeister was awarded first place in the "Soest Climate Protection Prize" for its biodiversity projects. "Our site at the old sugar factory is 17 hectares in size. Here we make various contributions to biodiversity and at the same time create a functioning coexistence of industry and the environment," is how Justin Trockels, Head of Human Resources and part of the founding family, describes the project.
On the Kuchenmeister factory premises on Hammer Landstraße, a good 21 fluffy field staff are at work with their offspring: the Bentheimer land sheep and the East Frisian milk sheep are responsible here for maintaining a good 3 hectares of green space. Not only do they keep the lawn short, but by constantly changing the grazed areas, the sheep also transport flower and plant seeds in their wool from one place to another. They thus become so-called "seed cabs" and make a not inconsiderable contribution to the diversity of the plant world on the Kuchenmeister site. By dispensing with conventional lawn mowers, hares, hedgehogs and field mice also feel visibly at home on the Kuchenmeister grounds.
In addition to the sheep, other creatures and plants also provide biodiversity on the site of the former sugar factory. A good dozen bee colonies also found a new home at Kuchenmeister in 2021. Since then, around 100 kilos of honey have been harvested annually by the caring beekeeping community. A good 13,000 square meters of wild meadow and over 130 fruit and deciduous trees provide food and habitat for the bees and other insects here.
We are reinvesting the prize money of €2,500 in biodiversity on our plant premises. Together with NABU, we are already working on a plan to prepare an area so that native insects, birds and small animals in particular feel at home there.
To the press compartment of Kuchenmeister GmbH
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