DMK Group benefits from reorganization

It was already known earlier that the company's turnover grew from €5,1 billion (2016) to €5,8 billion (2017), an increase of 13,7%. Ingo Müller, CEO of the DMK Group: "We have completely restructured the company and are now seeing the first positive effects."

According to CEO Ingo Müller, the company has now positioned itself as a modern food manufacturer, partly because the cooperative launched a new product offensive in 2017. With this new offensive, Skyr and Milram ice cream appeared in major retail chains for the first time.

More GMO-free milk
In addition, the dairy group is increasingly focusing on GMO-free milk (milk without genetic modification). Over the past 18 months, DMK has become the largest supplier of GMO-free milk in Europe; the cooperative produced 2,3 billion kilos during that period.

The cooperative also said that it now has more flexible raw material management and that in the future it will be able to obtain raw milk from 3 sources. It is important that priority is always given to milk from the members of the cooperative, making this option number 1.

The second source is that the company can process milk supplied by partners, and as a third source the company may also be able to purchase milk from the market. “These 3 sources allow us to respond flexibly to different market and business situations. This allows us to adjust the capacity utilization of our factories and increase our added value,” says Müller.

Complete reorganization
The dairy cooperative reports that it will complete the reorganization program at the end of June. The new plan involves working with 6 autonomous business units and a new leadership team, with 1.500 employees given new roles. “This transformation has demanded a lot from us, but the results are starting to come. However, we will always keep moving, because we operate in an extremely volatile market. It also makes a stable state, without changes, a utopia,” said the CEO of DMK.

DMK reports that the market remained stable in the first half of 2018, with demand growing both in Germany and internationally. Müller predicts a stable to positive trend in milk prices in the coming months. "However, I am cautious with further forecasts, given the high volatility of the dairy market. We are mainly concentrating on the further development of our cooperative."