Continuous investments

Vandemoortele is one of the leading manufacturers of frozen baked products. The works in Eeklo, Belgium, is among the company’s biggest locations, where 300 staff working 24/7 produce a wide variety of frozen baked goods.

+Vandemoortele N.V., Ghent, Belgium, is a company group employing a total of around 5,200 staff and pro ducing and marketing frozen baked goods together with margarines, cooking oils and fats in 35 production facilities in 12 European countries. Annual sales revenues are around E UR 1.4 billion, and the group is constantly expanding

For example, the company invested in a completely new fac tory in Kutno, Poland, in 2016/2017. However, a part of the company’s philosophy is continuous investment in existing production facilities, e.g. including in the works at Eeklo not far from Ghent, Belgium.

Site Manager Nick Clauwaert is responsible for more than 300 employees working at the latter site. The production facility was built on a green-field site between 1998 and 2000 and manufactures frozen Danish pastries and other laminated dough products, e.g. apple and nut turnovers or croissants in various weight ranges, on four lines working round the clock. The total number of different products is around 200. The Eeklo factory’s maximum production volume is up to 40,000 tons/year, the size of the total production area being around 16.600 m 2 with enough space for an extension.

Around 29% of the frozen baked products are exported to Germany, which makes that country the main outlet for products, followed by the consumer countries Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands. A proportion of the production, e.g. spicy Danish pastries with various meat fillings, is also exported to the USA.