Frosta

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Frosta Aktiengesellschaft

logo
legal form Corporation
ISIN DE0006069008 (Symbol: NLM)
founding January 20, 1905
Seat Bremerhaven , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management
Number of employees 1,778
sales 509 million euros (2018)
Branch food industry
Website www.frosta-ag.com
As of December 31, 2018

The Frosta Aktiengesellschaft (proper spelling FRoSTA) is a German producer of frozen food - industry with 1,709 employees and is based in Bremerhaven . The company's focus is on the production of frozen food products such as fish , ready meals and vegetables . Frosta consists of the branded, private label and non-retail stores. Frosta AG operates internationally and has production sites in Germany and Poland as well as sales sites in other Central and Eastern European countries. In 2017, was in a group sales , a 501 million euro consolidated net income of 23.4 million euros reported.

Frosta AG share for DM 5, Bremerhaven, July 1997

history

The beginnings of Frosta AG go back to the establishment of Hochseefischerei Nordstern AG on January 20, 1905. The entry in the Bremerhaven commercial register on January 31, 1905 was made with the business object of "long-distance fishing".

After the entry of steamers in the First World War , six of the ships were returned by the Navy in the spring of 1919 and gradually put into operation. During the same year, three steamers were lost in mine explosions in the North Sea. Two new buildings were completed, which resulted in a fleet of five steamers at the end of 1919.

At the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, fishing cutters were again drawn in at Hochseefischerei Nordstern AG and converted into war fishing cutters . Of the pre-war stock of 12 ships, only three survived until the end of the war.

In 1954 the textile entrepreneur Adolf Ahlers founded the shipping company "Maria von Jewer". The "Sagitta", put into operation in 1957 by Ahlers, brought the possibility of thermal stabilization through filleting and shock freezing.

In 1961 FRoSTA Handelsgesellschaft mbH was founded by Dirk Ahlers, son of Adolf Ahlers. Two years later, F. Schottke Seefisch-Großhandlung, founded in 1884, was taken over by Frosta and specialized in a frozen food company. In the same year the "FRoSTA" brand is registered as a trademark. Due to inefficient fishing quotas, deep-sea fishing was given up in 1970 when the fleet was sold.

Between 1978 and 1987, the expansion of the production of frozen fish, ready meals, vegetables and fruit was pushed forward by taking over Hochseefischerei Nordstern AG and Rheintal Tiefkühlkost GmbH (formerly Raiffeisen Tiefkühlkost GmbH) , which belong to the Jacobs Group. In 1985, the German Fishing Union was co-founded. The merger of all subsidiaries to form Nordstern Lebensmittel AG took place in 1988. In 1990 the Treuhandanstalt Sachsen bought the best-known brand for frozen vegetables in the GDR, Elbtal Tiefkühlkost GmbH. Seven years later, the company was finally renamed FRoSTA AG. With the purchase of a Unilever frozen food plant in Bydgoszcz, Frosta enters the Polish frozen food market in 1999.

The advertised and well-known "FRoSTA purity law" was introduced in 2003 for all products in Germany. The associated price increases led to a 40% drop in sales and a consolidated result of minus EUR 8 million. The financial year counts as the worst in the entire company's history. Between 1994 and 2015, Frosta products were launched in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Russia, Romania and Italy.

Group structure

Product portfolio

The following products cover large parts of the frozen food market:

  • Ready meals based on fish, meat and vegetables
  • Fish, especially fish fingers
  • Vegetables, fruits and herbs

Business areas

The branded business includes FRoSTA (ready meals, with the "FRoSTA purity law"), tiko (fish and dishes) and Elbtal (vegetables).

The private label business includes production according to customer specifications of the production partners by Frosta and COPACK.

The non-retail business supplies the catering trade and wholesalers with the "FRoSTA Foodservice".

Financial data

The following company key figures in the consolidated financial statements have been published in accordance with IFRS since 2003 .

year sales Profit before tax Annual result Dividend per share
2001 299 million euros 8.9 million euros 2.8 million euros 0.40
2003 262 million euros −4.7 million euros −7.7 million euros 0.00
2008 392 million euros 20.8 million euros 12.1 million euros 0.75
2013 386 million euros 18.2 million euros 12.0 million euros 1.00
2014 408 million euros 24.8 million euros 17.3 million euros 1.36
2015 440 million euros 26.1 million euros 18.2 million euros 1.36
2016 466 million euros 31.6 million euros 21.6 million euros 1.50
2017 501 million euros 34.9 million euros 23.4 million euros 1.60

The introduction of the "FRoSTA purity law" in 2003 brought the worst business year with a 40% drop in sales and a consolidated result of minus 8 million euros. Hochseefischerei Nordstern AG achieved an annual result of 665,290 marks in 1919 and paid a dividend of 12%. In 1954 an annual result of 150,000 DM was achieved and a 9% dividend was issued.

share

The company's share capital is divided into around 6.8 million no-par value bearer shares . The largest shareholders are Dirk and Felix Ahlers with 33.5% and 10.0%. The remaining 56.5% of the shares are in free float .

Managing directors

The board of directors of Frosta AG currently consists of 3 people. (max. 5 people; cf. § 5 of the articles of association of Frosta AG.)

  • Felix Ahlers, CEO (since 2010)
  • Maik Busse, Board Member Business Partnering and Administration
  • Hinnerk Ehlers, Head of Marketing , Sales and Human Resources

The Supervisory Board of Frosta AG consists of 3 people. (cf. § 6 sentence 1 of the articles of association of Frosta AG.)

  • Dirk Ahlers, chairman
  • Oswald Barckhahn, vice chairman
  • Jürgen Schimmelpfennig, employee representative

Holdings

Frosta AG has the following subsidiaries:

  • COPACK Tiefkühlkost-Produktions GmbH, Germany
  • COPACK France S. arl , France
  • COPACK S. rl , Italy
  • FRoSTA Tiefkühlkost GmbH, Germany
  • FRoSTA Foodservice GmbH, Germany
  • FRoSTA Italia S. rl, Italy
  • FRoSTA CR sro , Czech Republic
  • FRoSTA Sp. Z oo , Poland
  • FRoSTA S. rl, Italy

of which the following were not included in the consolidated financial statements:

  • FRoSTA Romania S. rl , Romania
  • NORDSTERN America Inc. , USA
  • 000 FRoSTA, Russia
  • FRoSTA Hungary Kft., Hungary
  • COPACK Sp. Zoo, Poland

There is a 33.33% stake in Columbus Spedition GmbH.

A 45.00% stake in BIO-FROST Westhof GmbH was sold on October 1, 2016, due to the failure of Frosta AG to meet expectations, and a long-term cooperation agreement was concluded.

purity command

Since the beginning of 2003 Frosta has been producing according to the "Original Frosta Purity Law". All products are made without additives such as colorings , flavors , flavor enhancers , emulsifiers , stabilizers , chemically modified starches and hydrogenated fats (only for the Frosta brand). After excellent sales in previous years, this change in quality brought the group an enormous slump in sales and profits due to the associated price increase, which led the company to the verge of ruin.

Before the production was switched to the purity law, Frosta hired the well-known food chemist and author Udo Pollmer to test the products for additives. So 60 additives were removed from production. It was also held margarine now butter , traditional cheese instead of cheese used and the fish from sustainable fishing related. Flavor enhancers were generally avoided. The declared goal of this changeover was to double the company's turnover within five years. As a result, a seven million euro marketing campaign was launched. The price of Frosta products increased by 30 to 60 cents per pack. Within a few months, sales fell by around 30 percent, market leadership was lost to Iglo and the new concept was considered a flop in the industry.

The consequence of the slump in sales was the dismissal of a tenth of the employees as well as the responsible CEO Thomas Braumann, who was replaced by Dirk Ahlers, who had actually been retired for some time.

After switching to fresh products and not using additives in 2003 brought the company the worst result in its history, customers have now accepted the new concept. After a loss in 2003, Frosta was able to show a profit of 7.4 million euros in 2004. In the following years, the previous year's profit was mostly exceeded and amounted to 23.4 million euros in 2017.

Others

A separate bistro for frozen food was operated until March 2010 . Since June 2005, Frosta employees have been running a weblog about their work.

From August 2009 to 2011, four products were labeled with a “ nutritional value traffic light ” on the front of the packaging. This was the first food in Germany to have information on fat , saturated fatty acids , sugar and salt in the traffic light colors red, yellow and green.

In December 2012, Frosta was awarded the German Sustainability Award in the Most Sustainable Brand category.

In 2017, on the anniversary of the "10 Years of Sustainability Award" of the German Sustainability Award, there was a special award for winning companies from previous years, which, among other things, stood up as "ambassadors for sustainability". Frosta was able to win this for itself.

In 2017, Frosta won the “My good example” competition from the Bertelsmann Foundation , the Association for Companies for the Region and the Central Association of German Crafts, with the “Cooking School for Children” initiative .

All plastic packaging is to be replaced with recyclable paper bags by the end of 2020 .

The Ahlers family is the main sponsor of the Hamburg Food Foundation, which runs the German Museum of Additives .

The shares of the original company Hochseefischerei Nordstern AG recorded an impressive price increase of 765% in 1920.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Frosta AG, Investor Relations , July 12, 2018.
  2. ↑ a b Annual Report 2018. In: frosta-ag.com. March 25, 2019, accessed May 1, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Frosta AG, Annual Report 2017 , p. 7 ff.
  4. ↑ Frosta AG, branches of Frosta AG , July 10, 2018.
  5. ↑ unimedia GmbH, company information , FRoSTA Aktiengesellschaft , June 28, 2018.
  6. ↑ THEMA1 GmbH, CASE STUDY Tagliatelle Wild Salmon , case study created as part of the PCF Pilot Project Germany , June 28, 2018, (PDF, 771 kB).
  7. ↑ a b c Fenchel, Ludwig: The German Shipping Companies - Volume 2 (Hamburg, 1921), digitized version of the library of the Seminar for Economic and Social History of the University of Cologne , p. 174, July 27, 2018.
  8. ^ Hahn, Joachim: Hochseefischerei Nordstern AG - www.sammleraktien-online.de , sales information for a share in Hochseefischerei Nordstern AG, July 18, 2018.
  9. ↑ a b Frosta AG, FRoSTA company history , July 18, 2018.
  10. ↑ Frosta AG, The FRoSTA brand , July 16, 2018.
  11. ↑ Frosta AG, Annual Report 2007 , p. 54 ff.
  12. ↑ Frosta AG, Annual Report 2017 , p. 22, 80 ff.
  13. ↑ Conordia expansiv (1956) , article in Die Zeit , No. 17/1956, July 15, 2018.
  14. ↑ Frosta AG, Investor Relations of Frosta AG , May 1, 2019.
  15. ↑ FRoSTA AG - Shares detailed view. Accessed May 1, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Frosta AG, Annual Report 2017 , p. 41.
  17. ↑ Frosta AG, ad hoc press release of September 13, 2016 , July 12, 2018. (PDF, 52 kB, German)
  18. ↑ Willenbrock, Harald: EISKALT ABSERVIERT (2003) , article in Brand Eins , July 18, 2018.
  19. ↑ Keiffenheim, Marcel: Turnover on Ice (2004) , article in Greenpeace magazine issue 6.04, July 18, 2018.
  20. ↑ German Sustainability Award 2017: FRoSTA wins anniversary award , video from the Frosta company channel on Youtube from December 14, 2017, July 18, 2018.
  21. ↑ Competition 2017. In: My good example. Bertelsmann Stiftung, accessed on May 29, 2019 .
  22. ↑ We're replacing plastic with paper! In: frosta.de. Retrieved November 10, 2019 .