PHW Group

In 1932, Paul Wesjohann founded an agricultural trade business with a hatchery in Rechterfeld. The same year but independently, Heinz Lohmann founded a fishmeal factory in Cuxhaven. Both expanded their businesses greatly in the following decades.[9]

In 1965, they jointly established a chicken hatchery in Rechterfeld. The sons of Paul Wesjohann, Paul-Heinz and Erich Wesjohann, both entered executive position there. The brothers took over more and more responsibility in the following years. In 1987, the Wesjohann family took over the majority of the share capital of Lohmann's company Lohmann & Co. AG, yielding the Lohmann-Wesjohann-Gruppe. In 1997, the Wesjohann family took over the remaining shares, subsequently owning the consortium completely.[9]

In 1998, Paul-Heinz and Erich Wesjohann split up the consortium. Paul-Heinz Wesjohann founded the PHW Group and Erich Wesjohann founded the EW Group.[9] While the EW Group became one of the world's largest poultry-breeding companies,[10] the PHW Group evolved into one of the largest poultry slaughter company in Europe.

The PHW Group subsequently expanded and took over competitors as well as companies in other countries. The acquisitions included the Polish poultry processor Drobimexin 2001,[11] the Dutch slaughterhouse Esbro in 2014[12] and the German duck processor Wichmann in 2016.[13] In 2018, the PHW Group took over the distribution for Beyond Meat in Germany.[14]

Until the end of 2007, the PHW Group sponsored the professional cycling team Wiesenhof–Felt.[15] Since 2012, the PHW Group is the main sponsor of the professional football club SV Werder Bremen.[16]

The founder Paul-Heinz Wesjohann handed over the CEO position to his son Peter Wesjohann in 2009.[9]

The PHW Group was repeatedly criticized for bad working conditions. Im 2007, the ZDF broadcast the TV format Frontal21 documenting very bad working conditions and wages of Polish migrant workers.[17] In 2011, similar conditions were documented by a ARD TV-reportage.[18]

Mistreatment of animals in the farms and the slaughterhouses was repeatedly criticized sharply. In 2010, the ARD broadcast a Report Mainz reportage uncovering serious animal welfare violations at a chicken breeding farm.[19] In another ARD reportage in 2011[18] and in a Stern TV reportage in 2013, further cases of animal abuse were documented.[20]

The PHW Group is accused of overexploitation of groundwater resources in the vicinity of its production sites.[21] In Lohne, groundwater levels near a plant of the PHW Group were documented to have dropped by several meters since 1951.[22]

In 2014, the German Federal Cartel Office imposed fines totaling approximately €338.5 million on 21 sausage producers and 33 responsible individuals. The so-called Wurstkartell (German for sausage cartel) also involved PHW Group subsidiary Wiesenhof Geflügelwurst GmbH & Co. KG based in Rietberg.[23]

In 2019, the PHW Group relocated the registered office of Lohmann & Co. AG to Vaduz in Liechtenstein. The financial services provider Ganten Trustees Ltd. serves as the representative office, which previously appeared in the Panama Papers.[24] The party Alliance 90/The Greens accused the PHW Group of tax evasion.[25]

Protest at the headquarters of the PHW Group in Rechterfeld in 2021.

Environmental and animal rights activists blocked sites of the PHW Group multiple times in protest. In 2013, activists cemented themselves on the access road to the slaughterhouse in Bogen, Bavaria.[26] In 2017, animal rights activists and members of citizens' initiatives blocked the slaughterhouse in Königs Wusterhausen, Brandenburg.[27] In 2021, the alliance Gemeinsam gegen die Tierindustrie blocked the company headquarters in Rechterfeld with more than hundred activists.[28][29]