Leiber: Excellence in yeast

Leiber –located today in Bramsche, Germany – was founded 1954 by Mr. Franz Leiber and until today it is a family owned business The trading of brewers yeast and grains was the basic business idea 60 years ago. Since then Leiber developed to a highly sophisticated specialist of yeast products, supplying to the food, feed and pharmaceutical health industries. Besides of the headquarter in Germany, Leiber is operating with production plants in Poland and Russia and services the customers worldwide with agents in 32 countries.

1994 Leiber started the production of yeast extracts. Focussed to produce typical dark brewers yeast extracts, well known and most appreciated as spreads and gravy bases since more than 100 years in countries with english roots and in the health conscious vegetarien community., Uuntil today Leiber serves this kind of products to the food industry.

Meanwhile Leiber has broadened it´s range of yeast extracts to cover all applications possible, offering the most comprehensive range, including dark, light and naturally taste enhancing extracts. In differentiation to the competition, not trade of commodities but supply yeast extract specialities, if necessary individually developed, is the strategy to be successful worldwide. So to create taste solutions, taste being the key of succes in the competitive food market, is our contibution to our customers success.

The international markt reasearch company Frost & Sullivan in 2008 honoured Leiber with it´s "Best Excellence Award" for their activies in the yeast extract business. Criteria measured were:

1. Introduction of new products, strategically positioned to balance the product line
2. Ability to accommodate different market segments, or different markets within an industry by repurposing technology
3. Enhancement of product offerings through optimization of packaging, service, delivery, financing, and/or other value-added services
4. Strategic technology or marketing acquisitions or alliances

In the recent 4 years the business of Leiber was affected by rapid and strong growth.
Leiber was encouraged and forced to invest in the enlargement of the extraction plant and installing a spray drying unit, tailor made for drying the technologically difficult yeast extracts, accompanied by a warehouse for finished goods.

In these days everybody is talking about sustainability and how to integrate that into the running business. We at Leiber have established a business concept already more than 50 years ago, which we believe can be judged as a classic example of sustainability. Our company founder Franz Leiber had the idea to make valuable use of the by-products of the brewing industry, which beforewere not used at all and partly even were a burden for the environment. Today we are proud to say that we managed to establish a watertight chain of sustainability and all naturally manufactured products - starting from the summer barley going via malt, hops and finest well water. Our raw material base - the brewer`s yeast has seen only finest and purest raw materials with a regional origin and in line with the German purity law from 1516.

Beyond that we are eager to produce as environmentally friendly as possible for example through investing in a biogas electrical power plant. With this plant we managed to exploit also the last piece of valuable components into our waste water stream turning it into electical energy and heat for our production processes and on the other side significantly reducing the waste water loading. In recognition of this project we were granted the Energy Efficiency Award from the German Energy Agency (dena)