GEA, one of the largest suppliers of industrial food processing systems and equipment in the world, announced record quarterly orders amounting to at least EUR 1,240 million in value for Q4 2015 during an investor conference in New York on January 12. The Düsseldorf, Germany-headquartered company – which will exhibit at Booth B4907 during the IPPE in Atlanta from January 26-28 – reported that billings topped the last best quarterly result of EUR 1,220 million rung up in Q2 2013, and was an increase of 7.1% over the fourth quarter of 2014.
“The achievement of this order intake is the result of an extraordinary effort of GEA’s employees across all levels and functions in the new OneGEA organization,” said Jürg Oleas, the company’s chief executive officer. “2015 was a very special year for GEA, as the group made a fundamental transition from an agglomeration of smaller businesses towards an integrated group, taking out complexity costs by reducing the number of management layers. While all this fundamental change was happening inside the company, our employees showed their real strength by staying focused on customers and markets to achieve the highest order intake ever in any quarter.”
From cooking lines and freezers to food packaging equipment, valves and control systems, GEA has a wide range of technologies built to process and preserve convenience foods. Energy-efficient tunnel freezers are ideally suited for freezing loosely rolling products, such as peas, berries or french fries, while carton freezers are built especially for freezing products in cartons or shrink-wrap. Spiral freezers, which have a capacity of up to seven tons per hour, are widely used by producers of fish sticks, chicken nuggets and other convenience foods. GEA’s spirals feature frost-management, sequential defrosting, and snow removal systems, which allow continuous operation for up to 14 days, without interruption for defrosting.
The company also supplies piston and screw compressors, as well as an extensive array of performance-focused systems for producing value-added poultry, red meat, fish and seafood items. Its offerings run the gamut from single machines to complete production lines for preparation, marinating, cooking, slicing and packaging.
The Group, which generates more than 70% of its revenue in the food industry, employs approximately 18,000 people worldwide. The company will issue the full scope of preliminary key figures for fiscal 2015 and the outlook for FY 2016 on February 4. Its audited annual report will be published on March 10.
