Hero (company)

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Hero

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1886
Seat Lenzburg , Switzerland
management CEO : Rob Versloot

Rob Versloot (from September 2012)
Chairman of the Board : Arend Oetker

Number of employees 4070 (2018)
sales 1.28 billion CHF (2017)
Branch Food industry
Website www.hero-group.ch

Hero is an international Swiss food company based in Lenzburg, specializing in fruit products , baby food and muesli bars .

history

Henkel & Roth (Hero AG) canning factory between 1918 and 1937. Photo Walter Mittelholzer , glass plate negative
Hero FruitOntbijt in the Netherlands

The group of companies is active in more than 30 countries, particularly in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa, Turkey and Central Asia. The Hero Group employs more than 3,500 people and achieved sales of 1.28 billion Swiss francs in 2017.

The group was founded in 1886 by Gustav Henckell and Gustav Zeiler in Lenzburg. Subsidiaries in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain were added at the beginning of the 20th century. Hero also grew by taking over several canning factories in Switzerland. In the decades after the Second World War, branches were added in Brazil and Italy. Another growth spurt followed from the 1980s. In 1995, Hero was taken over by Schwartau and thus also known in Germany.

Since the headquarters of the Hero Group in Switzerland no longer met needs due to the relocation of jobs and takeovers in recent years, the company premises were sold and the new corporate headquarters in Lenzburg were planned. Connected to this is a new plant for the production of jam only . The move-in date for the property, which cost around CHF 20 million, was spring 2011.

The main shareholder of the Hero Group is Arend Oetker .

In 2013, on the occasion of the company's 125th anniversary, the Burghalde Museum in Lenzburg / AG used a well-attended exhibition to show which elements contributed to the company's success.

brand

The “Hero” brand, as an abbreviation for the company owners at the time, Henckell & Roth, was systematically and purposefully built up from 1910 onwards with extensive advertising for “Lenzburger Conserven” and “Lenzburger Jams”. Even back then, the focus was on the trademark with the letter "r" in the form of an open tin can . For this purpose, Hero used a relatively high share of sales for its advertising budget for years . In the 1940s, for example, it was three percent of sales.

criticism

Oetker came under fire several times. When he secured a majority stake in the Swiss canning and jam company Hero AG in 1995 when his company Schwartau International GmbH bought up FIM AG, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung called the deal “very opaque”. The Hero AG shares were parked in FIM AG ( Rüdiger Jungbluth : “a letter box company ”, based in the “tax-free canton of Zug ”). The amount of money that flowed remained unknown.

At the beginning of 2003, Oetkers Holding already owned 74 percent of Hero AG and set about acquiring the remaining shares at the most favorable market prices. Jungbluth quotes shareholder lawyer Ekkehard Wenger as saying that the Hero case is a prime example of "how to push small shareholders out of companies cheaply in the bear market if successes can actually be expected in the future."

Only Oetkers bought Schwartau International GmbH , the Hero AG , then bought Oetkers Hero AG , the Schwartau works . stern.de commented: "So Oetker practically did business with himself."

Well-known brands of the company

  • Schwartau
  • Hero
  • Beech-Nut (USA)
  • Corny
  • Fruit 2 Day
  • Adapta
  • Semper
  • Juvela
  • Organix (UK)
  • Friso
  • Smafolk
  • Cake Mate
  • Sunar
  • Casa de Mateus

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lebensmittelpraxis: Hero: Heidenreich leaves company , April 15, 2011, accessed on March 21, 2020
  2. ↑ Aargauer Zeitung: Knatsch bei Hero: Boss has to leave after only eight months , accessed on January 31, 2013
  3. ↑ Annual Report 2018
  4. ↑ Annual Report 2018 p. 67.
  5. ↑ Hero Lenzburg - attractive exhibition ( Memento from December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Hero - on everyone's lips since 1886 , at museumburghalde.ch, accessed on March 21, 2020
  7. ↑ Cinema spot from the 1950s
  8. ↑ Irene Amstutz: Trust in the can or how Hero sells peas and ravioli. in: Alpha, January 7, 2012, p. 40.
  9. ↑ a b stern.de : Arend Oetker: In the realm of the other Oetker . September 9, 2004
  10. ^ Rüdiger Jungbluth: The Oetkers. Campus, Frankfurt, New York 2004, ISBN 3-593-37396-3 , p. 351 u. 355
  11. ^ Rüdiger Jungbluth: The Oetkers. Campus, Frankfurt, New York 2004, ISBN 3-593-37396-3 , p. 357