MEIKO – the well-known manufacturer of commercial dishwashers and cleaning and disinfection appliances based in Offenburg, Germany – posted a new order intake record in 2013. The volume of business generated by the company-s commercial dishwasher operations at its headquarters and key production site rose by some 6 million euros to more than 108 million euros. This included increases of over 8 percent for large commercial dishwashing machines and almost 12 percent for cleaning products. 1,100 employees in Offenburg contributed to these results.
In total, more than 2,000 people worldwide were employed by MEIKO companies in 2013, up from the previous year-s figure of 1,800. The MEIKO flag continued to be flown by 23 subsidiaries, 12 of which are located outside Germany. Consolidated group sales hit another record high of 260 million euros, while the order intake posted by MEIKO-s foreign subsidiaries rose by 5 percent to 120 million euros. MEIKO received major orders in the seven-figure range for its dishwashing technology from both domestic and foreign customers. The company reported particularly encouraging increases in sales – mostly in the double-digit percent range – in Australia, France, the USA and China. In Austria and Switzerland, the company-s traditionally high market share in the large commercial dishwasher sector saw a further boost, while domestic business in this product group once again posted a hit rate in excess of 70 percent, with 7 out of 10 major contracts during the year being awarded to MEIKO. For the first time Japan emerged as the strongest export market in the cleaning and disinfection technology business, notching up growth of 60% over the previous year-s figures. Further growth markets for this product group included Latin America, India, Australia and the rest of Europe excluding Germany.
In autumn 2013 the new M-iClean range of undercounter dishwashers was launched in impressive style at a prestigious event held at the Europa Park Rust leisure park in Germany. MEIKO took orders worth more than one million euros for this product range within just the first few weeks of its launch. Production of the M-iClean machines also began on schedule in autumn 2013 in a brand-new manufacturing hall equipped with the very latest machine tools. The extraordinary success story of the M-iQ flight and rack type dishwashing machines continued unabated in 2013. Taken together with the new M-iClean, this means that the clear majority of all the dishwasher models offered by MEIKO from 2014 onwards will have been on the market for less than four years – a striking indicator of MEIKO-s innovation capabilities.
The quality and innovation of MEIKO-s products and services once again led to a number of awards and prizes in 2013. These included the prestigious Mercury Award for the company-s M-iQ technology, which was presented at the annual conference of the International Travel Catering Association (ITCA), as well as the “Best of Market” award presented by the German trade journals “Gastlichkeit” and “GVmanager”. This latter award, which was based on a survey of 2,300 readers of the two journals, confirms MEIKO-s popularity in the hotel, foodservice and catering industries. MEIKO also received the “Star Award in Gold” for the fifth time in succession from the “Top hotel” trade magazine at the Internorga trade fair.
The company-s business expectations for 2014 are positive. This confidence is also reflected in an investment budget totalling over 12 million euros. This includes the construction of a new Service Centre at the company-s Offenburg site which will help to further optimize this key service.
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