Scholz at Katjes
Although he is actually trying to kick the snacking habit, the visit to the "Transparent Candy Factory" on 15 August 2023 was still important to him. After all, Katjes has been operating a modern production facility in his constituency of Potsdam since 2006, where brands such as WICK, SALLOS and Glacier Ice are produced.
On the tour of the plant, at the end of which the Federal Chancellor was presented with a bag of sweets with "Scholz or nothing" written on it, he was given a guided tour of production by Managing Partner Tobias Bachmüller and Plant Manager Andreas Respondek. He spoke to employees and also enquired with works council member Martin Niehle about the current state of affairs. Up to 6,000 tonnes of Katjes vegan sweets are produced annually with the support of 81 employees in the factory, which has a colourful mural and the words "The Future is Plant-Based" on the outside.
Olaf Scholz was very complimentary about his visit to Katjes and said: "We saw an extremely impressive production facility here with a high degree of automation." Hänsel Processing, which ensures hard candy production at Katjes with a Sucoliner 1701 and a Strada 1500, is also pleased with this.
The particular challenge when setting up the plant was to build a flexible production system with a high degree of automation for a large number of different products. This was to manufacture Sallos products with short changeover times using a new innovative process and cover the entire process from raw material handling, weighing, cooking, dosing and tempering to moulding.
Hänsel Processing, which realised the planning and implementation of the systems and still provides support and after-sales service throughout the entire life cycle, has received a lot of positive feedback for this system. According to Managing Director Heiko Kühn, the low operating costs are particularly satisfying.
