Private company
PHW-Gruppe
Logo: Lohmann & Co. AG, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3
German company in the meat industry
The PHW Group is a German family business in the meat industry that operates internationally. Its core business is meat processing of poultry. It is the largest company of the poultry industry in Germany and the fourth-largest in Europe.2 It employed 5,483 people.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0
Last updated Oct 21, 2026.
Overview
- Industryfood industry1
- HeadquartersRechterfeld1
- Websitewww.phw-gruppe.de
- Legal formAktiengesellschaft1
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The PHW Group is a German family business in the meat industry that operates internationally. Its core business is meat processing of poultry. It is the largest company of the poultry industry in Germany and the fourth-largest in Europe. The PHW Group is headquartered in Visbek-Rechterfeld in the Oldenburg Münsterland region, Germany.2
Controversies and legal
Controversies
Exploitation of workers
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. In 2011, similar conditions were documented by a ARD TV-reportage.
Animal abuse
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. In another ARD reportage in 2011 and in a Stern TV reportage in 2013, further cases of animal abuse were documented.
Environmental issues
The PHW Group is accused of overexploitation of groundwater resources in the vicinity of its production sites. In Lohne, groundwater levels near a plant of the PHW Group were documented to have dropped by several meters since 1951.
Illegal price agreements and tax evasion
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.
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. The party Alliance 90/The Greens accused the PHW Group of tax evasion.
Protests
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. In 2017, animal rights activists and members of citizens' initiatives blocked the slaughterhouse in Königs Wusterhausen, Brandenburg. In 2021, the alliance Gemeinsam gegen die Tierindustrie blocked the company headquarters in Rechterfeld with more than hundred activists.
From Wikipedia’s article on PHW Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4
Timeline
- 1932Founded Founded1
Links
- Websitewww.phw-gruppe.de1
- WikipediaPHW Group
- More imagesWikimedia Commons
- WikidataQ2044167
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataPHW-Gruppe on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaPHW-Gruppe on Wikipedia
- 3Wikimedia CommonsPHW-Gruppe logo by Lohmann & Co. AG, Public domain
- 4