Müller-Milch closes one of its dairies

Müller-Milch closes one of its dairies

Müller-Milch owns the largest dairy in Saxony. The group of companies has recently bought other companies, but they don’t want to use all of them now.

Dresden. One dairy too many in the range: Theo Müller Group, also owner of the 2,800-employee Sachsenmilch in Wachau-Leppersdorf near Radeberg, wants to close one of its new acquisitions. According to Lebensmittel-Zeitung and Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, Müller has announced that he will drop his traditional Cologne position this year.

At least 200 employees in Cologne’s Bilderstöckchen district have been informed – Müller has offered them jobs at other locations in the group of companies. There are many vacancies on the group’s job portal, as well as in Leppersdorf – for example in production, maintenance technology and logistics. The packaging manufacturer Optipack and the transport division Culina-Logistics are also located there.

In April, the Müller Group struck a deal with its rival Friesland-Campina: Müller bought the Landliebe brand and also acquired production sites in Cologne, Heilbronn and Schefflenz. Müller has now declared that the regulations of the Federal Cartel Office prevent the continuation of economic work in Cologne. The dairy was to celebrate its centenary there next year. Production is scheduled to stop at the end of October this year.

Business moved to Saxony

The Federal Office of the Cartel extensively examined the large business of two dairy groups and gave approval only under certain conditions: for example, Mueller was not allowed to acquire the Wuppertal brand Tuffi, but had to resell it. It worked – Tuffi was transferred to Hochwald Foods.

According to information on its website, the Müller Group has 17 production sites in 13 countries. This also includes the Weihenstephan dairy in Freising near Munich and several factories in Great Britain. Leppersdorfer dairy under the Sachsenmilch brand is one of the largest in Europe. Dairy products for other brands are also produced there. The company is headquartered in Müller’s hometown of Aretzred in Bavaria-Swabia, but the company’s headquarters are in Luxembourg. Theobald Müller lives in Switzerland for inheritance tax reasons.

Müller took over the Saxon site after the previous company, Sachsenmilch AG, went bankrupt in 1994. 1.8 billion liters of milk is processed there each year, including butter, yogurt and pudding products. Müller invested heavily in the site, but also at the expense of others – the bulk cheese dairy closed in 2004 on the Vienenburg site in the Harz Mountains, with 130 jobs lost. Since then, loose cheese has also come from Leppersdorf. In 2017, problems were renewed in Lower Saxony when Müller also wanted to move the production of the Homann delicatessen salad from Diessen to Saxony. However, nothing came of it.