As of January 1, 2019, Bühler will address the global food market with a newly created segment: Consumer Foods. By combining the current chocolate, nuts, bakery and coffee business with the Haas business, the new organization will be able to support customers even better in these global markets through simplified interfaces, integrated solutions, innovation, and services. Germar Wacker, now CEO of Haas, will lead the new segment and join Bühler’s Executive Board.

For Bühler Group, the creation of a new business segment is a milestone in its over 150-year history. In the recent past, the company has operated two businesses, Advanced Materials and Grains & Food. Triggered by the acquisition of the Austrian Haas Group, Bühler is aligning its setup and forming a new business truly focused on Consumer Foods and confectionery with integrated solutions to produce wafers, biscuits, baked goods, chocolate, pralines, filled products, nuts, coffee, and more. “With this move, we can create significant value for our customers and position ourselves as clear leader in the growing consumer foods market,” says Bühler CEO Stefan Scheiber.

Since its acquisition in January 2018, Haas has operated as a separate Bühler business. The integration showed remarkable results in a very short time. Bühler and Haas already serve many key customers together, work jointly on customer projects, and are in discussion with numerous interested partners. The new organization, which combines all consumer foods related technologies and solutions in one segment, is the logical next step to serve customers from one single point of origin. “With this new, strong business pillar in the field of processing technologies in consumer foods, we can offer specialized knowledge as well as research and development to the needs of our customers in that sector,” says Germar Wacker, who is currently CEO of Haas and will lead the new segment. As a consequence, Germar Wacker will become member of the Executive Board of the Bühler Group.

The new organization will become effective January 1, 2019.