Müller bread

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Müller-Brot GmbH (old)
legal form GmbH
founding 1930
resolution 2012
Reason for dissolution insolvency
Seat Neufahrn near Freising, GermanyGermanyGermany 
management Klaus Ostendorf, Stefan Huhn, Jürgen Kluge
Number of employees 1,227
sales 117.9 million euros
Branch Food production
Status: 2010

Höflinger Müller GmbH (current)

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 2012
Seat Neufahrn near Freising , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management Franz Höflinger
Number of employees 540
sales 45.4 million euros
Branch Food production
Website hm-gmbh.de
Status: 2016

The Müller-Brot GmbH was a German bakery based in Freising . On February 16, 2012, the company, in which the founding Müller family was no longer involved, filed for insolvency. Most of the branches were taken over in April 2012 by the founding daughter Evi Müller and the Munich master baker Franz Höflinger and operate under the brand name Müller Höflinger .

history

Müller-Brot was founded in Giesing in 1930 . After the death of his parents in 1951, the 19-year-old son Hans Müller sold the original bakery and instead became a wholesale baker and thus the first supermarket supplier for baked goods in Germany. In 1953 he introduced the world's first fully automatic production system for rolls. At the end of the 1970s, the wholesale bakery began to not only supply supermarkets, but also to set up its own branch network. At the beginning of the 2000s, Müller-Brot was the fourth largest baked goods manufacturer in Europe.

The previous CEO, Hans Müller, sold his company in 2003, which he later described as a serious mistake. He moved to the supervisory board of the company, which is now run as a stock corporation, and was replaced by Klaus Ostendorf (spokesman) and Stefan Huhn, Karl-Heinz Pähler and Otto Hasmiller. Ostendorf also became the majority shareholder by taking over shares in the company from the Müller family and a block of shares from the financial investor MidOcean Partners (MOP). Before the takeover, the company reported 2003 sales of 425 million euros and a branch network of 387 stores. In 2004, after a contract was terminated by the Barilla group, there were still around 250 million euros in sales with 2000 employees. As of January 2012, the company, now trading as a GmbH, had 260 branches of its own and around 3,600 sales outlets on its website, which were concentrated in southern Germany. It reported a turnover of around 115 million euros and a workforce of around 1,300. The Müller bread brands included Müller , Mühlbacher Bauernbrot , Pack mich Back mich , Bayrisch Back , Bäcker and various retail brands. Klaus Ostendorf was the partner and managing director of Müller-Brot GmbH , while Michael Phillips (manager at Apax Partners ) was a partner in the GmbH . On February 16, 2012, Müller-Brot filed for bankruptcy.

With effect from April 7, 2012, the daughter of the Müller-Brot founder, Evi Müller, and the Munich master baker Franz Höflinger took over a large part of the branch network of the insolvent company as well as all around 435 branch employees with 148 branches of the previously 230 locations. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price. A new company philosophy was defined in five guiding principles, which among other things includes strict hygiene management and guarantees customers baked goods of perfect quality. At the same time, the new owners invested heavily in modernizing the branches. Original Müller pretzels have been sold again in Müller branches since summer 2012 under the slogan "Finally the original again".

The former wholesale baker Hans Müller died at the age of 87 in June 2018.

Hygiene deficiencies and consequences

In 2009, the Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety controlled the company and subsequently imposed several fines.

Despite the pest infestation, the pollution of the production facilities and the investigations by the public prosecutor's office, the German Agricultural Society (DLG) awarded a federal honorary prize to Müller-Brot in June 2010 and the company received a total of 14 DLG gold medals for its products in October 2011.

Between October 2010 and January 2012, baked goods were destroyed under official supervision in the factory due to poor hygiene. Nonetheless, unsanitary baked goods made it onto the market. During this time, baked goods were recalled from the branches three times for violating food law.

After inspectors repeatedly found "serious hygiene deficiencies" on January 30, 2012, Müller-Brot was asked to stop production in the bakery in Neufahrn due to the serious hygiene deficiencies. The public was not informed by the authorities. Due to a lack of deliveries in numerous Müller branches, the company announced internally that there were "delivery problems due to a smoldering fire". Only after the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on February 1, 2012 about the lack of deliveries of goods, the inspections of the district office and "poor basic hygiene", this was also admitted by the company. Production was discontinued in order to carry out a complete cleaning of the plant and equipment.

On February 2, the Freising District Office announced that a check had found "a significant amount of pests in the operating rooms". The food-enjoyment-restaurants union (NGG) also criticized the fact that the monthly wages of Müller-Brot employees were only paid with a delay of weeks and that multiple agreed wage increases had been postponed or halved.

On February 3, the State Food Safety Office announced that coercive fines and fines had already been imposed on the large bakery several times due to the hygiene deficiencies. "Special controls" of the food control had been in place for two and a half years because of the problems in the company. In addition, the Landshut public prosecutor's office was turned on on May 10, 2011 and has been investigating Müller-Brot since then. The responsible senior public prosecutor stated: "It is being investigated because of the placing on the market of foods that are unsuitable for human consumption"

The State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) announced that pests such as cockroaches, moths and beetles had been found in the baking ingredients and that the facilities were repeatedly contaminated with mouse droppings and leftover food from previous productions. This affects "various product lines and parts of the company", such as machines, goods issue and the warehouse. Due to the hygiene scandal, Müller-Brot first lost its major customer Lidl , and later also Aldi Süd .

On February 7, 2012, Müller-Brot announced that as a consequence, the entire floor of the production facility in Neufahrn would be "overhauled". The measure extends over an area of ​​54,000 m². In addition, the conveyor lines used would be changed, a new cleaning management system introduced and new hygiene staff deployed. On March 19, 2012, the State Office for Health and Food Safety decided to stop production because, according to the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation , "[...] mouse poop and dead cockroaches were discovered again" and "[...]" there were considerable doubts in the sustainability of the measures' [...] ".

On February 16, 2012, the company filed for insolvency at the responsible district court in Landshut, justifying this with the slump in sales. Shortly before, on February 11, 2012, the company management had assured at a works meeting that wages and salaries were secure and that the company had a future. At the time of filing for bankruptcy in mid-February, the company had not yet paid its employees salaries for the months of January and February.

The hygiene scandal sparked a discussion about consumer information and the so-called hygiene traffic light. Companies that process food should be obliged to publish the results of official controls via a notice with traffic light colors. 15 federal states voted for the planned introduction of a nationwide hygiene traffic light for food companies in 2011 , only the then Bavarian Minister of Health Markus Söder vetoed the introduction. In this context, the federal chairman of the Federal Association of Food Inspectors also expressed a lack of understanding for the procedure in the Müller-Brot case, since, according to his statement, it could not be that of the 21 inspections carried out since 2009, the goods recalled several times and the total of 69,000 euros imposed Consumer fines and penalties would not experience anything.

On January 23, 2014, the Landshut public prosecutor brought charges against the three former managing directors, the former operations manager, the production manager and the head of quality management. They are accused of selling large quantities of food that was not fit for consumption, as well as delaying bankruptcy and fraud. The managing directors were sentenced to suspended sentences of between 12 and 22 months in September 2016 .

See also

Web links

 Wikinews: Müller bread  - in the news

Individual evidence

  1. a b Großbäcker Hans Müller died at the age of 87. In: www.merkur.de. June 18, 2018, accessed June 18, 2018 .
  2. MidOcean Partners , created in 2003 through a management buyout from the private equity subsidiary DB Capital Partners of Deutsche Bank
  3. Müller-Brot: Wes Brot ich ess ', des Firma I buy' in Manager Magazin from February 24, 2004
  4. Müller-Brot company in numbers at mueller-brot.de
  5. Müller-Brot: Did the millionaires screw it up? in the evening newspaper of February 8, 2012
  6. http://www.hm-gmbh.de/de/leitsaetze
  7. Höflinger and Müller take over Müller-Brot branches in Merkur-Online from April 5, 2012
  8. Foodwatch, Mäusekot und Dreck at Bavarian large bakery on foodwatch from February 3, 2012
  9. a b c d Topic: Scandal about large bakery on the pages of the Bavarian radio
  10. for Müller bread despite defects: Seal of approval without quality ( memento from March 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) from February 9, 2012
  11. Inspectors at a large bakery: The shelves of Müller-Bread remain empty in the Süddeutsche Zeitung from February 1, 2012
  12. Baking company has to stop production: Serious hygiene deficiencies at Müller-Brot from February 1, 2012
  13. Production stop at Müller-Brot - pests detected  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated February 2, 2012@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kreis-freising.de  
  14. a b c Mouse droppings and leftovers: Public prosecutor's office is investigating a large bakery in Der Spiegel from February 3, 2012
  15. Cockroaches and mouse droppings at Müller-Brot in the evening newspaper of February 3, 2012
  16. Massive hygiene problems: Lidl stops deliveries of Müller bread in Der Spiegel on February 7, 2012
  17. Müller-Brot broke: 1300 employees affected in the evening newspaper of February 16, 2012
  18. Current information on Müller-Brot.de on February 7, 2012
  19. Müller bread stays tight. www.br.de , March 20, 2012, archived from the original on March 19, 2012 ; Retrieved March 20, 2012 .
  20. Müller-Brot files for bankruptcy in Süddeutsche Zeitung on February 16, 2012
  21. Vermin in production: Scandal bakery Müller-Brot went bankrupt on February 16, 2012
  22. ^ Application for bankruptcy - Müller-Brot: "That’s the last one!"
  23. Müller-Brot employees: Now it's about the salaries in the evening newspaper of February 16, 2012
  24. ^ Hygiene scandal at Müller-Bread: Red light for consumer protection from February 16, 2012
  25. pom: Müller-Brot: Court sentenced ex-managers to suspended sentences. In: Focus Online . September 30, 2016, accessed October 14, 2018 .