Gallicoop was founded in Szarvas in 1989 with a share capital of 40 million Hungarian forints (HUF). The enterprise, which was initially a greenfield investment, has undergone huge changes during the past 25 years in its activities as well as its company structure, and now has a capitalisation of over 1652 million forints. The company, which used to operate almost exclusively as a slaughterhouse, had its first major change in 1992 with the arrival of the ambitious new ownership and management. The new management team ambitiously expanded the core activities of the slaughterhouse year on year, which at the time was processing 1700 tons, and today is processing 40,000 tons of meat each year. According to increasing demands, the second most important step was the purchase of the fodder mixer plant in 1994. With this we took the first step towards full integration, because the quality and reliable supply of the fodder mix determines the future of the whole production cycle. The introduction of processed products had always been our intention from the very beginning. The building was designed to cater for it, but we did not have the right technology or machinery. Today the volume of Gallicoop’s finished product production annually reaches 7000 tons. After establishing our processed food production, the next step was to build a plant for breaded products. The plant was initially equipped to produce semi-prepared products, but those semi-finished products were slowly driven out of the market due to food safety regulations, so expanding to ready prepared products was essential, and our factory was improved with oven facilities to bake the products at the end of the production line. As a result of this investment, out of 20–25,000 tons of Hungarian breaded products in the domestic market, 4000 tons are turkey-based products prepared by Gallicoop.

The founders’ creed and mission is to produce safe and good quality products for consumers. Thanks to our dedicated approach, over 25 years we have become the domestic market leader. The company believes it’s first priority responsibility is for the principle of operational sustainability. The food industry and especially poultry farming and processing can cause significant burden on the environment, so the company puts significant emphasis on all areas to use environmentally friendly solutions, and with that we would like to set an example to our competitors.

• During the slaughtering and processing of turkey, significant volumes of hazardous waste is generated. We handle this waste in a closed system, avoiding any contact with the environment, passing it to our proteinprocessing plant.
• Waste is processed in a modern and environmentally friendly way, in one of the largest capacity Biogas plants in Hungary.
• We built our own biological sewage plant, therefore waste water does not leave the site. This helped to reduce the town’s sewage plant load by a third.
• We have our own water source; 7 deep wells operate on our main site.

Gallicoop is the country’s biggest integrated closed system turkey meat producer. The company’s activities can be divided into two main areas: One is the production and distribution system, which includes the artificial incubation, the processing of fattened turkey, producing of meat products and sales.

The other is the integration of production, which includes the rearing of turkeys, fattening and the necessary egg production as well as keeping the breeding stock, which is handled by external partners.

Our integrated system can be described as “from the land to the table”. We are able to control each and every step of the process from the production of special poultry feed, through growing, processing and packaging turkey all the way to delivering the final product to the market. 6 key points ensure our company’s strategic values, and are embodied in our Hungarian brands award as the “6-star Hungarian Gallicoop”: Hungarian feed, Hungarian ownership, Hungarian workforce, Hungarian ingredients, Hungarian expertise, Hungarian processing.

Today Gallicoop as a company and a brand name represents reliable, healthy and high quality products. In addition to fresh turkey meat, a wide range of advanced quality products are available for direct consumption. The product range includes turkey sausages, ham-type products and cold cuts, pate, cooked and smoked products, frankfurters and prebaked breaded products. The company’s products have reached Italy, England, Ireland, France, Germany and Portugal, and also of particular importance the nearby markets such as Austria, Croatia and Romania. We have also started to develop trade with some strategic eastern markets, where we have successfully exported to Japan and occasionally to Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Russia. These are areas we would like to strengthen in the future. Export for Gallicoop has crucial importance, since the 10,000 tons of turkey breast produced each year can only be sold abroad.

Our company guarantees its customers with Europe-wide recognised quality assurance systems and food safety standards, for which we have been awarded the very highest quality assurance and professional certificates. Since 2002 we have successfully participated in various food exhibitions and Hungarian Quality Product Award schemes. We have received the prestigious Foodapest award 5 times, and in 2006 the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development awarded our company with a special Hungarian Agricultural Quality Award. To highlight our ongoing quality and commitment, we were recently recognised with the 2013 Business SuperBrands award. The was especially a great honour considering very few Hungarian food companies are awarded, and it remains our goal to be among the best, thus facilitating consumer choice, as well as being an example to other businesses.