“Melitta should also become a global brand for coffee”

After two years of crisis with a combined loss of almost 100 million euros, the coffee company Melitta will be back in the black in 2026. "We expect profits to be over 50 million euros. The cash flow and capital reserves have also improved significantly," said Jero Bentz, member of the company management and great-grandson of company founder Melitta Bentz, to WELT AM SONNTAG.

Sales, in turn, fell by around 100 million to 1.2 billion euros in the first half of the year. This is due, on the one hand, to the lower green coffee prices, which, according to Bentz, were passed on to customers, and, on the other hand, to the loss of sales due to business closures and sales.

As a result of the crisis, 150 jobs were cut at the headquarters in Minden, East Westphalia. In addition, Melitta closed, among other things, a paper factory in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and a coffee machine factory in China and also sold a non-coffee business in Italy. “Excluding these factors, we are up seven percent,” said Bentz. "Especially since we were able to increase our sales volume despite the continued challenging consumer and market environment. We are therefore very satisfied with the first half of the year."

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In any case, Melitta is now planning growth again. “We want to almost double group sales by 2033: from the current around 2.5 billion to four to 4.5 billion euros,” announced Bentz. The driver here is the coffee business with powder, beans, pads and instant, which already accounts for around 60 percent of group sales. The original filter bag product, which has made the brand internationally known in recent decades, still accounts for around eight percent today. The family business wants to make even greater use of this reputation when it comes to coffee in the coming years. “Melitta should also become a global brand for coffee,” said Bentz.

In order to cope with the expected growth, Melitta will invest around 100 million euros in the Bremen location over the next five to six years. “We are building what will probably be the largest coffee roasting plant in Europe there, with a capacity of 130,000 tons,” says Bentz. Around 90,000 tons of green coffee can currently be processed at the Melitta location in Bremen. An expansion is also planned at one of the two roasting plants in Brazil.

This article was created for WELT and “Business Insider Germany”.

Carsten Dierig is a business editor in Düsseldorf. He reports on trade and consumer goods, mechanical engineering and the steel industry as well as medium-sized companies.