Photo from left to right: Rafael Pérez Abejón (ABN Director of Operations), Christian Stork-Bohmann (Leiber CBDO), Lucas Mazzini Vázquez (ABN Production Manager), Lourdes Fernández-Abellán Sancho (ABN Supply Chain Manager), Gilbert Klausmeyer (Leiber CEO), Bernd Schmidt-Ankum (Leiber CEO), Oliver Beckmann (Leiber COO), Helge Jakubowski (Leiber CSO), César Pérez Abejón (ABN CEO)
The Spanish Aplicaciones Biologicas a la Nutricion S.L. (ABN) and the German Leiber GmbH are joining forces on the European Market for food and feed products derived from brewers´ yeast. While ABN, founded in 2000, employs some 50 specialists, Leiber has built up a team of some 250 staff since its founding in 1954. Both family-owned companies specialize in products and ingredients for the food and animal nutrition industries. Both run production and R&D facilities, and emphasize the sustainable approach of their products and processes.
‘We’re delighted to have found a partner who will enable us to further innovate and broaden our offer of high quality products for the European Market,’ says Cesar Perez Abejon, Managing Director of ABN. ‘We’ll continue to distribute our products under the well established brand name of ABN and keep all our colleagues on board. We are looking forward to a closer cooperation with our long standing partners of Leiber.’
‘The close cooperation of Leiber with ABN will open up many synergies, more than just the sum of its parts. By joining forces, we´ll be able to broaden our services level and portfolio towards the brewing industry as well as our customers on the European market. With our joint capacities it will be easier for us to offer innovate products not only for feed and food but also for biotechnology and neutraceuticals,’ says Bernd Schmidt Ankum, CEO of Leiber GmbH. ‘We’ll both gain with regard to efficiency, innovation and logistical management.
ABN is a key player on the European yeast market, focusing on Spain and Portugal. With own R&D and production sites ABN products offer high quality solutions for the food and animal nutrition sectors. Founded in 2000, the company is run by the second generation of the family owners. More about ABN
Leiber refines brewers’ yeast into innovative products for humans and animals. For our customers we conduct research in our own laboratories and develop tailor-made solutions for healthy nutrition, biotechnology and agricultural applications. We reliably supply excellent products – and have been upcycling at world-market level since 1954.
Vitafoods 2024, the world-renowned trade fair for nutraceuticals, took place in Geneva for the last time this year and was a great success. Around 20,000 participants from all over the world attended the event, which is considered one of the most important platforms in the industry.
Our highlights at Vitafoods 2024
Our booth attracted many interested visitors this year. We were proud to present our YeaProt® Sanus, an innovative yeast protein as a vegan alternative to whey protein. Visitors were impressed by the neutral taste and emphasized the product’s versatility.
Another highlight at our booth was the chocolate-flavored protein bar, served as an example of how our YeaProt® Sanus can be used. This also received consistently positive feedback and demonstrated impressively how our yeast protein can be integrated into delicious and healthy products.
In addition to YeaProt® Sanus, we presented Yestimun® Beta-Glucan and InterYeast Vital Yeasts. Both products attracted great interest among the visitors.
A trade fair full of engaging encounters
The Leiber trade fair team was actively engaged throughout the entire event. We had many of interesting discussions and were able to make numerous new contacts. The interest in our products was overwhelming and we can look back on an extremely successful trade fair. We would like to thank all the employees whose dedication and expertise contributed significantly to our success. Their commitment and professionalism were essential for the smooth running and success of our trade fair presence.
Vitafoods 2024 in Geneva was an important milestone for us and a worthy conclusion to the trade fair at this location. We are looking forward to attending Vitafoods in Barcelona next year and are excited about the new challenges and opportunities that await us.
Many thanks to all the visitors who visited our stand. We are already looking forward to seeing you again next year in Barcelona!
When Franz Leiber founded the company that now bears his name on 6 March 1954, the word upcycling didn’t yet exist. The founder’s basic idea of obtaining valuable extracts from secondary beer brewing streams was also innovative. Leiber is now a globally networked specialist for brewers’ yeast, and develops ingredients for biotechnology, the food industry, animal nutrition and agriculture in its own laboratories. To accomplish this, over 200 employees in Bramsche work together with around 65 partners worldwide to refine brewers’ yeast, thus making Leiber GmbH, which has developed from Bierhefeverarbeitungsgesellschaft Franz Leiber & Co over the past 70 years, a highly-specialised market leader.
Innovation is the company’s DNA. In cooperation with diverse customers, new products are constantly being developed in our internal Research and Development department. Its laboratories are an important element of the new Leiber Campus which was inaugurated in 2023.
These modern, three-storey headquarters gather the various departments – from Customer Service, Sales and Marketing to Corporate Development and Finance – together under the same roof in the immediate vicinity of the production site in Bramsche-Engter. Colleagues meet up in the integrated restaurant, a test kitchen provides room for experimental tastings with guests and bright galleries offer space for discussions.
“With the Leiber Campus, we want, firstly, to offer our staff a good place to work and meet up and, secondly, to invest in Leiber’s successful future at the Bramsche site”, says Gilbert Klausmeyer, Managing Director of Leiber GmbH. In the recent past, Leiber has also invested in production facilities in Engter and in a new biomass power plant that is intended to reduce CO2 emissions by approx. 50% from the end of 2024. Leiber aims to achieve net zero at its German production site by 2030. At Leiber, sustainability is not only firmly entrenched in the company’s motto, “Give Yeast a Second Life”, but throughout the entire value chain. As an intermediary between major breweries on the one hand and food and animal nutrition industry companies on the other, Leiber is a medium-sized ‘hidden champion’.
“Decades of experience with the raw material of brewers’ yeast combined with the pioneering spirit of a start-up are what make Leiber unique. My grandfather Franz Leiber himself exemplified the innovation that we are continuing to evolve”, says Bernd Schmidt-Ankum, Managing Director of Leiber GmbH and the founder’s grandson.
The team is at the centre of this corporate success. Leiber offers varied, crisis-proof and meaningful jobs. “We offer a wide range of jobs. We offer opportunities for trainees and production employees, engineers and laboratory technicians or also salespeople and key account managers”, says Magdalena Brosda, head of the Human Resources department. Applications from the Osnabrück region are equally as welcome as those from the university network with which Leiber cooperates.
In order to present the company, the products and also career opportunities to interested parties and neighbours, Leiber is planning an open day on Sunday, 15 September 2024. This family-friendly date has already been set; the programme of events is to be finalised before being published.
Leiber’s appearance at the Vitafoods trade fair in Geneva was focused on Yestimun® beta-glucan for stimulating and modulating the immune system. Leiber presented its wide range of Interyeast® Vital Brewers’ Yeast products with a high vitamin B content at Europe’s biggest nutraceuticals trade fair. In mid-May, this was where 150,000 experts from 130 countries met up to network, to identify market trends and to find out about new product developments.
The new Yestimun® website also went live right on time at the start of the trade fair (www.yestimun.de). Here, product developers can obtain information on Yestimun®’s functions and the applications for which Brewers’ Yeast beta-glucan can be sensibly used. The website offers consumers answers concerning the Yestimun® brand, which is also listed as an ingredient on end consumer packaging.
About Leiber:
Leiber refines brewers’ yeast to produce innovative products for humans and animals. For our customers we carry out research in our own laboratories and develop tailor-made product solutions for healthy nutrition, biotechnology and agricultural applications. We reliably supply excellent products – and have been upcycling at world-market level since 1954.
At VIV ASIA 2023, Leiber presented itself as an innovative producer of animal nutrition and health solutions for all animal species: from pigs to poultry, beef and dairy cattle up to and including aquacultures, pets and horses in all phases of life. After a long, four-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, Bangkok was once again the focus of the feed industry. Leiber was able to meet up with its customers and partners face-to-face in Asia again, too.
Leiber views the APAC region as a significant growth market with long-term potential. It is important to the brewers’ yeast specialist to recognise customers’ diverse requirements and offer innovative solutions in order to improve feed quality, feed consumption and sustainability, for instance. Talks at trade fairs offer the impetus for specifically implementing new brewers’ yeast projects that arise from dialogue with customers.
VIV ASIA is one of the biggest trade fairs in Asia dedicated to livestock breeding, animal production, its supply chain and animal health solutions, bringing together all related sectors and animal species. The trade fair offered 45,527 visitors the opportunity to take a look at products and services from more than 1,186 global manufacturers and suppliers from 57 countries. Intensive personal dialogue, networking and lively knowledge transfer took place at the feed-to-food industry’s marketplace over a period of three days.
Leiber is already planning its visit to the next VIV Asia, which is scheduled to take place in Bangkok again from 12 to 14 March 2025.
About Leiber:
Leiber refines brewers’ yeast to produce innovative products for humans and animals. For our customers we carry out research in our own laboratories and develop tailor-made product solutions for healthy nutrition, biotechnology and agricultural applications. We reliably supply excellent products – and have been upcycling at world-market level since 1954.
Since the beginning of 2023, Leiber has been a member of the BalPro Association for Alternative Protein Sources (“Verband für alternative Proteinquellen”).
On 30 January, 2023, BalPro made the official announcement that Leiber is a new member of the association. Our company was featured on the BalPro website and on social networks such as LinkedIn.
Why has Leiber joined BalPro?
Based on the idea that “differentiating beats ideologising”, BalPro is an independent platform of companies, start-ups, politics and research institutes that form a network for exchanging branch-specific expertise on all matters relating to alternative proteins.
The exciting feature here is that the association members themselves act within the entire value chain of alternative proteins, thus forming a network of experts from a wide range of fields, who are able to find answers to complex questions.
At Leiber, we see the topic of alternative proteins as a key technology and are therefore convinced that being a member of BalPro and benefitting from the associated exchange of information and open dialogue within the companies will make an important contribution to furthering the economic development of alternative proteins and allow Leiber to strengthen its interests and position in the various markets.
We recognise numerous opportunities for constructive and transparent dialogue with many of the association members and for developing relationships with new and existing customers and project partners.
About Leiber:
Leiber refines brewers’ yeast to produce innovative products for humans and animals. For our customers we carry out research in our own laboratories and develop tailor-made product solutions for healthy nutrition, biotechnology and agricultural applications. We reliably supply excellent products – and have been upcycling at world-market level since 1954.
To kick off 2023, Leiber is establishing a cross-functional marketing approach and stepping up its international sales in the Life Science Business Unit.
Karolin Kreutzer has been heading up Leiber’s cross-sector marketing department since 1.1.2023. As a trained advertising specialist and an experienced saleswoman, she previously represented Leiber’s Nutraceuticals Business Unit as its Global Business Development Manager, a role in which she enjoyed international success. She will continue to develop the Leiber brand’s strategic thrust together with marketing experts Jana Blank and Karen Mörler.
“Leiber’s position as a market leader for product solutions consisting of brewers’ yeast is thanks to its constant innovativeness. Our dedicated colleagues in the various specialist fields and countries contribute extensively to the success of this family-run, medium-sized company. What I am most looking forward to in my new position is further enhancing these actively implemented values from within the company and making them visible externally through targeted communication,” says Karolin Kreutzer.
Within the Life Science Business Unit, two new Key Account Managers will be looking after our customers in Europe: Ms Eike Meyer-Wetjen will be supporting customers in Germany/Austria and Ireland/UK with immediate effect. Mr Alessandro Sobacchi is the contact person for the expansion of the Italian market. Both have long-term experience in the food industry and have already worked successfully as distribution partners for Leiber in the past. With these two experts, Leiber is specifically stepping up its direct selling in these countries.
About Leiber:
Leiber refines brewers’ yeast to produce innovative products for humans and animals. For our customers we carry out research in our own laboratories and develop tailor-made product solutions for healthy nutrition, biotechnology and agricultural applications. We reliably supply excellent products – and have been upcycling at world-market level since 1954.
Leiber is once again presenting its products at specialist trade fairs around the globe with a new, sustainable stand concept. Following the forced hiatus caused by the coronavirus pandemic, visitors at the EuroTier trade fair were delighted to engage in face-to-face talks again. Leiber focused on the sustainability of its brewers’ yeast products under the slogan ‘Give Yeast a Second Life’. Digital brochures and reusable stand construction elements at the small, but fine 40 m² stand also underscored the importance of sustainability to Leiber.
106,000 people attended the world’s leading trade fair for professional animal production and livestock management in Hanover in November. In order to specifically engage in dialogue with professional visitors, Leiber’s stand concept was designed for communication, with brewers’ yeast products on display, a touch wall with video clips and slide shows and a download area for digital brochures.
Helge Jakubowski, Director of Leiber’s Animal Nutrition Business Unit, and his team were delighted about the numerous discussions conducted with customers and interested visitors. “It was wonderful to be able to talk about innovations and joint projects in person again. This professional exchange is inspiring for all concerned.” The clearly visible trade fair stand offered a convivial, informative backdrop for this.
Around 1,800 manufacturers from 57 countries took part in EuroTier at the trade fair grounds in Hanover from 15 to 18 November 2022. Each day, national and international companies presented their products and innovations in 14 halls covering an area of 250,000 m² following a four-year break in physical attendance.
About Leiber:
Leiber refines brewers’ yeast to produce innovative products for humans and animals. For our customers we carry out research in our own laboratories and develop tailor-made product solutions for healthy nutrition, biotechnology and agricultural applications. We reliably supply excellent products – and have been upcycling at world-market level since 1954.
In future, Leiber will use waste wood to generate a large proportion of the heat energy and about one third of the electricity required for its production operations in Engter, Lower Saxony. To this end, the brewers’ yeast specialist is investing around 14 million euros in a new biomass power plant.
Regarding the start of construction in October 2022, Bernd Schmidt-Ankum, Managing Director of Leiber GmbH, said: “With the biomass power plant in Engter, we want to use waste wood to replace around 70% of the gas previously required for our production. Here, we are pursuing the goal of manufacturing our products not only in a sustainable way, but also in a climate-neutral way in the future.”
Leiber needs heat for the production process: for drying the brewers’ yeast in spray towers and for extracting high-quality, health-promoting ingredients. At Engter, this thermal energy has been generated from gas, until now. To replace this fossil fuel with a renewable raw material, Leiber is building a biomass power plant that will be fuelled by waste wood.
“By the end of 2023, the new biomass power plant should be supplying around half of the gas and electrical energy. This will allow us to save up to 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year,” said Oliver Beckmann, Director Technology & Production. “This will bring us closer to our goal of using energy even more efficiently and manufacturing Leiber’s products as sustainably and climate-neutrally as possible.”
The boiler plant of the new biomass power plant will be constructed on a footprint of 760 square metres. The wood storage facility covers an area of 570 square metres and can store up to 2,500 cubic metres of waste wood. A maximum of 3 tonnes of wood will be burnt per hour, equating to around 15,000 tonnes per year. The waste wood used to fuel the plant is waste from wood processing facilities, or pruned material from landscape conservation.
Leiber will have the effects of this energy generation checked annually and recorded in a transparent manner as part of the company’s sustainability strategy. Leiber is certified on a regular basis according to the ZNU Quality Seal for Sustainable Management, which is awarded by the Center for Sustainable Leadership at the University of Witten Herdecke.
About Leiber:
Leiber refines brewers’ yeast to produce innovative products for humans and animals. For our customers we carry out research in our own laboratories and develop tailor-made product solutions for healthy nutrition, biotechnology and agricultural applications. We reliably supply excellent products – and have been upcycling at world-market level since 1954.
In September 2022, Leiber inaugurated a completely new drying plant for brewers’ yeast in Krosniewice – which coincided with the company’s 20th anniversary of entrepreneurial involvement in Poland. The employees at Krosniewice celebrated this dual achievement with local politicians and business representatives, and 15 colleagues from the headquarters in Bramsche.
Katarzyna Erdman, the mayor of Krosniewice, emphasised the excellent collaboration with Leiber and welcomed the investment at the site.
In the now expanded factory, with its brand new plant, around 35 employees produce brewers’ yeast products that are shipped to customers around the globe. Leiber acquired the old production facility, which formerly belonged to a dairy, back in 2002 – which was before Poland joined the European Union in May 2004. The plant in Krosniewice gave Leiber access to Polish breweries, which allowed the company to further process the brewers’ yeast from these breweries without the need for long-distance transport. The new plant, with its modern and efficient drying system, now complements the existing facilities.
Many thanks, in advance, and kind regards from Bramsche
About Leiber:
Leiber refines brewers’ yeast to produce innovative products for humans and animals. For our customers we carry out research in our own laboratories and develop tailor-made product solutions for healthy nutrition, biotechnology and agricultural applications. We reliably supply excellent products – and have been upcycling at world-market level since 1954.
