REICH is Germany's oldest name in the field of thermo-processing systems for food and is one of the leading providers in the industry worldwide. In operation since 1893, the company offers solutions for the thermal treatment of meat and sausage products, fish, poultry, cheese, convenience food, vegan and vegetarian products, and pet food. Hannah Barnett found out more from co-CEO Tobias Layer.
When Tobias Layer and his business partner Steffen Jaiser had the chance to buy REICH in 2013, they jumped at the opportunity to invest in the company’s growth. Both had already been working as engineers for REICH since 2006. By putting their own stamp on operations, the acquisition has paid dividends for the company over the ensuing decade.
“We started to work out our way of investing in the future with REICH,” said Tobias Layer, co-CEO. “We've gathered a team of great people around us and we've been able to grow year-by-year.”
When looking at the figures, the growth Mr Layer was hoping to achieve is not only evident, it is impressive. REICH built a new factory in 2013, the year of the acquisition by Mr Layer and Mr Jaiser. But the company did not stop there.
“By 2016, we had to double our final assembly area, with another new building,” said Mr Layer. “In 2020, we built two new workshops and an office building. As a result, in the last ten years, we have increased our sales by a factor of four. We have also significantly increased our market share, not only in Germany and Europe, but globally.”
Keeping it in-house
Unlike many companies that have followed a trend of outsourcing processes and sub-contracting certain services, REICH continues to focus on expanding its own vertical integration.
“We believe we can have the best quality of product by doing as much as possible ourselves,” explained Mr Layer. “We have a fully equipped, state-of-theart sheet metal processing factory. We create all the machines in-house from scratch; we develop them, we build them and we assemble them. They are even brought to operational status here, in our factory, before they are delivered to customers worldwide.”
One of the ways REICH maintains this strategy of vertical integration, (alongside continued healthy growth), is by investing in technological innovation that supports its in-house operations. The
company recently invested in the electrical switch cabinet construction department, for instance, as well as developing its automatic cable harness manufacturing capabilities. REICH has also invested in animated electrical circuit diagrams, which allows more employees to build electrical panels.
“All these investments are part of our strategy to do as much as possible in-house not only for the value that generates, but also the quality and the control,” said Mr Layer.
Innovative machinery
By combining mechanical electrical engineering expertise and the know-how of the company’s food technologists, REICH has developed an elite portfolio of AIRMASTER ® products. One strength of these systems is the particularly high levels of air circulation they achieve, resulting in short and efficient processes as well as best uniformity and highest yields of the final products.
The REICH AIRMASTER ® UK is one of the company’s flagship products: an excellent all-round choice and a classic system. Its applications range from warming, to drying, hot and cold smoking, cooking, hot air cooking, baking, maturing and cooling.
The AIRMASTER ® UK works with vertical airflow and was developed primarily for hanging products. In combination with smart airflow guidance within the system, items achieve exactly equal drying even in the upper area of the trolley.
Another popular product, the AIRMASTER ® UKQ AIRJET, is the world's most powerful crossflow universal system. Thanks to its extremely high-power reserves, it can deliver production capacities well above normal levels. The uniform drying and heat treatment provided by this system exceeds that of any competitor. The crossflow system works with completely horizontal products, using alternating airflow that has been optimised over many years.
“We developed the AIRMASTER® UKQ AIRJET, already 20 years ago, specifically for horizontally lying products,” Mr Layer explained. “It increases the trolley loading for lying products by more than 100 per cent, sometimes 120 per cent – on one trolley. And the products are created in an extremely uniform way. Many of the big salmon smokers around the globe use our systems for their salmon fillets, and thanks to the benefits of this technology,
the investment pays for itself within a very short time,” explained Mr Layer.”
A higher trolley load increases the efficiency of the process in terms of space, energy and handling. And increasing the uniformity of the thermal treatment dramatically increases yield too. “In this field, we are global leaders,” said Mr Layer. Another innovative product is the REICH AIRMASTER ® IC INTERCOOLER. . “The spe -
cial thing about this hybrid is its ability to realise all thermal processes, and in particular intensive cooling processes, in a single device,” explained Mr. Layer. “The machine combines the functions of a normal universal smokehouse with those of an intensive chilling system. It’s very flexible and versatile and that has a positive impact on the microbiology of the product too.”
Reliable products
At the beginning of 2023, REICH delivered a large project with the installation of 16x4 trolley units for the production of meat products like sausages and hams into one of the largest family-owned meat plants in Scandinavia. The installation included REICH AIRMASTER ® UK systems as well as the REICH AIRMASTER ® IKK system for cooking and intensive cooling.
“When you're working on such a big project,” said Mr Layer, “you must pay a high level of attention to many little details. It's not a standard operation. You have to listen carefully to your customer; you have to find out what they want, what they need, and what they might like differently next time.
“A good thing on this Scandinavian project was that we already delivered units to the customer more than ten years ago. So they knew what we can provide. And they also knew the newer innovations we have developed over the last couple of years. So, we have been able to form a team with the customer on an equal level.”
Indeed, REICH is proud of its customer relationships because it is a company known for the reliability of its systems –
offering not only high performance and efficiency, but durability too.
“For us it’s very important to have highquality equipment that provides a reliable system, one which lasts for 20 or 30 years,” Mr Layer explained. “Some of our customers even use their smokehouses longer than 30 years. Therefore, they must be built very robustly, using high-quality components preferably made in Germany. When it comes to air-flow technology and the performance of our machines, we promise to provide short process times, uniform products and a high yield.”
It is clear that REICH takes pride in its excellence in engineering and product development across the board. Since its acquisition by Mr Layer and Mr Jaiser, its growth across the food sectors has been remarkable.
“We work from New Zealand to Alaska, from east to west and from south to north,” Mr Layer concluded. “We are everywhere, on all continents: and that is what I love.
We have customers in different cultures, countries, applications. We work in the meat industry, in fish, poultry, cheese, convenience food, vegan, vegetarian products and pet food. What this means is that in the 17 years I have been here, it has never been boring.” n
