Customized variety for the meat and food industry

What started in 1982 with the standard meat hook according to DIN 5047 (Eurohook) and a one-man operation has long since grown into a solution provider for the meat and food industry and pharmaceuticals. 40 years after its founding by Burkhard Hölker, the Hölker Group employs around 120 staff at three locations in Germany and Poland and supplies customers in more than 50 countries worldwide, with an increasing trend. Through a cooperation with Freund Maschinenfabrik, Hölker is currently working to strengthen its market presence in Latin America for its high-quality stainless steel products. The standardized Eurohook is less of a focus now, but as a cornerstone of the company's success, it remains a fixed part of the product portfolio. Today, however, the range is much broader. "The anniversary catalog offers more than 850 different products – from racks, pallet trucks, complex conveyor systems, lifting and tipping devices to custom hygienic doors and disinfectant dispensers," says Benjamin Hölker, who has been managing the company with his sister Isabell since 2009, after both joined the family business in 2001. Isabell Hölker is responsible for personnel, accounting, and purchasing, while her brother handles marketing, sales, and production.

The disinfectant dispensers are a good example of Hölker's performance. With the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for disinfectant dispensers increased. "With our flexibility and in-house production capacities, we were able to respond quickly and provide our customers exactly what they needed to meet the rising hygiene and safety requirements," reports Benjamin Hölker. Among other things, this quality has helped the company withstand recent challenging times. "The order situation is good. We have a large inventory and can deliver quickly. The group's sales have steadily increased slightly over the past few years, except in the crisis year 2009, when the meat market collapsed due to animal diseases. The experience of that crisis year prompted us to look for other industries where our products might be of interest. The goal was to diversify the risk."

Because at that time, around 98 percent of our sales were generated in the meat industry. Today, that is different. We are more diversified and now supply numerous industries across many different sectors," says Benjamin Hölker.

The managing director also speaks of tailored diversity when looking at the 212-page catalog "40 Years of Hölker." "Our product portfolio is growing because we think innovatively and forward-looking. We also develop customized new solutions for specific customer requirements or transfer our experience to typical products from other industries that have proven successful there. Customers often come to us with their own ideas, which we then implement together." Many of these products initially arose as individual solutions for a customer and are now part of the core portfolio. This also applies to the hygiene technology sector, which has gained importance in the offerings of the medium-sized company in recent years. "Hygiene is an absolute prerequisite for our customers in the meat, food, and pharmaceutical industries to operate sustainably and successfully," says Benjamin Hölker. To meet this prerequisite, Hölker continuously modernizes, adapts, expands, and tests its hygiene solutions for safety. Voluntarily, the company has even had the entire HS product series externally tested to guarantee a more consistent, comparable, and controllable standard in hygiene technology — successfully: TüV Rheinland awarded the TüV certificate after the technical inspection. It also confirmed full compliance with the fundamental requirements of the current machinery directive in all aspects, as well as electrical safety, directive conformity, and overall safety.

Back to the company's history: After the nationwide success of the Hölker standard meat hook in the 1980s, customers across Europe quickly became aware of the advantages of the innovation from Wallenhorst. In 1992, Hölker Spolka z o. o. started operations in Poland to produce meat hooks. Two years later, Hölker Anlagenbau GmbH was founded for the construction and assembly of empty hook conveyors and cleaning technology, as well as the distribution of hygiene technology. In the next step of internationalization, Fleischwirtschaftsbedarf was renamed Food Equipment in 1998. The product range has since steadily expanded, along with the international sales, which began in 2003, with the Hölker headquarters in Wallenhorst usually initiating new products and creating the requirement specifications. Development and implementation then take place at the Polish site. 95 percent of all products in the catalog are produced by the Hölker Group itself and can usually be delivered quickly thanks to a 3,000-square-meter warehouse. "In recent years, we have not only invested in Poland and purchased new machinery. Our goal is to produce more products ourselves in Wallenhorst in the future. For this, we have invested in a sheet metal shear, a bending machine, a punch machine, and a perforating machine. The limiting factor is the shortage of skilled workers. We need employees who enjoy tackling difficult tasks. They must also be willing to acquire additional qualifications that were not required in their trained profession. For example, electricians can also weld with us," says Benjamin Hölker.

Hölker works not only trustfully with partners in many countries, as with Freund in Latin America. In Spain, Italy, the UK, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, Estonia, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium, as well as Denmark for the Scandinavian countries, Australia, and New Zealand, dealers distribute numerous Hölker products for the meat, food, and pharmaceutical industries. "Involving customer wishes directly and straightforwardly during product development is one of our trademarks," summarizes Benjamin Hölker. "It was already the case in 1982 when Burkhard Hölker set out with the standard meat hook to conquer the meat and food industry, and it remains so even after 40 years."