WIESENHOF – QUALITY AS A BRAND CONCEPT

The needs of the consumer dictate product development and production’ – what is now the PHW Group has been guided by this principle in its company policy and its ‘Wiesenhof’ brand since 1995. The stated origin concept lists the around 700 breeding farms and producer associations by name – a unique concept in the European poultry industry. The decision to stop feeding animal proteins – meat and bone meal – was followed by the guarantee that no antibiotic performance enhancers are used. The ‚hen-house card‘ now being discussed by the politicians has been an integral part of the quality concept for years. In addition, since 1998 all operations in all stages of production have been inspected and certified by the independent Berlin Institute of Animal Health and Agricultural Ecology (ifta) for animal health and animal protection as well as non-contamination with residues and environmental protection.

All the production stages are in Germany and the company’s ecology concept stretches from what is known as its ‘pasture chickens’, which are allowed natural freedom of movement, to the sparing use of natural resources: in the last five years electricity and gas consumption in the company‘s slaughterhouses has been reduced by around 18 percent, water consumption by 15 percent. In 1995 66 percent of the company’s packaging was disposable, in the year 2000 this was reduced to 16 percent. 84 percent of the total sales volume was supplied in reusable containers.

The PHW Group has assumed another pioneering function with its ‘Wiesenhof’ brand in the current debate on genetically modified animal feed and human food: ‘Wiesenhof’ uses soya inspected and guaranteed to be non genetically modified in the feed from its own mills. This guarantee is made possible by safe growing areas in Brazil and by various controls carried out throughout the whole delivery process and in the feed-producing plants. At the same time ‘Wiesenhof’ is working with GeneScan Europe AG, a globally active network of innovative biotech companies which are market leaders in the field of molecular biological analysis of genetically-modifi ed organisms.

The company has been publicly congratulated on this guarantee by Greenpeace – and has a Europe-wide deal with the fast-food chain ‘Burger King’: Wiesenhof was able to guarantee Burger King to deliver only poultry products which have not received genetically modifi ed foodstuffs.