AGRANA Beteiligungs-AG

AGRANA Beteiligungs-Aktiengesellschaft was set up in 1988 as the holding company for the Austrian sugar and starch industries.

In order to ensure future growth after reaching its primary objectives in South-Eastern Europe and in the face of anti-trust restrictions in its core segment sugar, AGRANA elected to add a FRUIT division focusing on fruit preparations and fruit juice concentrates to its existing SUGAR and STARCH operations.

Today, AGRANA is one of the leading sugar and starch companies in Central Europe, the global market leader in fruit preparations for the dairy industry and one of the world’s largest producers of fruit juice concentrates. In the space of just a few years, AGRANA has successfully transformed itself from a traditional Austrian sugar and starch company into a rapidly expanding global player.

The successfully implemented diversification strategy to create sugar, starch and fruit segments, and our on-going internationalization have yielded further growth. AGRANA is now present on five continents with a total of 55 production facilities.

AGRANA products are an indispensible part of everyday life. The range of these products includes starch in textiles and paper, bioethanol as a sustainable and environmentally-friendly fuel, sugar in food products, fruit juice concentrates and fruit pieces in yoghurts. Our aim is to securing a leading position in these markets when it comes to adding value to agricultural products while at the same time considering aspects of sustainability. We see this as the basis for being able to generate sustainable added value for AGRANA.

AGRANA Zucker GmbH is responsible for managing the Group’s Austrian sugar operations and also acts as a holding company for the sugar subsidiaries located in Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Romania.

The sugar segment also includes the related business operations involving instant products marketed by INSTANTINA Nahrungsmittel Entwicklungs- und Produktions Ges.m.b.H. (Austria) and its Hungarian subsidiary.


AGRANA Stärke GmbH oversees the Group’s Austrian starch operations (with its potato starch factory in Gmünd und the corn starch factory in Aschach) and is also the parent company of the starch division’s local and foreign subsidiaries. These include the Hungarian isoglucose factory Hungrana (a 50:50 joint venture with Tate & Lyle and ADM), the Romanian corn starch factory S.C. A.G.F.D. Tandarei, and AGRANA Bioethanol GmbH with its facility at Pischelsdorf, Lower Austria, in which the sugar beet farmers’ cooperative also holds 25%.

In the past four years, AGRANA has also established its globally active fruit division through a series of acquisitions to become a leading supplier of fruit preparations and fruit juice concentrates. We have attempted to generate the maximum benefit in the interests of our customers from the opportunities and synergies offered by these acquisitions.


AGRANA Juice & Fruit Holding GmbH indirectly holds all of the fruit division’s business interests. The coordination and operational management of the fruit preparations business is overseen by AGRANA Fruit S.A., located in Paris, France, while AGRANA Juice GmbH, located in Gleisdorf, Austria, is responsible for all fruit juice concentrate operations.

Many years of experience in adding value to agricultural raw materials for the food industry, the quality of processed products (sugar beet, potatoes, corn, wheat and fruit) as starting materials and the high degree of efficiency achieved by the processing and value-adding techniques employed are the basis of AGRANA’s success.


Technological leadership, whether in Europe or, in some cases, worldwide, is the basis for our top quality products. In additional to crystallized sugar, numerous specialty sugar varieties, starch and specialty starch products of various types, AGRANA also produces a range of fruit preparations and fruit juice concentrates.
AGRANA has also been expanding in the area of organic starches to become an international player in this segment with production facilities which conform to EU Directive 2092/91 (Directive on ecological agriculture and the labeling of agricultural produce and food).

By-products from the production of sugar and starch are either used as animal feed or are spread on the fields as a soil conditioner, thereby completing the natural cycle.

The entire AGRANA Group has been certified in accordance with the quality assurance system ISO 9001 and also fulfils the requirements of the International Food Standard (IFS).


Shareholder structure
Z&S Zucker und Stärke Holding AG (Z&S), based in Vienna, currently holds 75.5% of the share capital of AGRANA Beteiligungs-AG. The remaining 24.5% of the shares are in free float.

Z&S is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vienna-based AGRANA Zucker, Stärke und Frucht Holding AG, which in turn is 50% owned by Südzucker AG, Mannheim/Ochsenfurt, Germany (Südzucker) and 50% owned by Zucker-Beteiligungsgesellschaft m.b.H., Vienna (ZBG).

The shareholders of ZBG are Raiffeisen-Holding Niederösterreich Wien reg.Gen.m.b.H.; Marchfelder Zuckerfabriken Gesellschaft m.b.H.; Estezet Beteiligungsgesellschaft m.b.H.; Rübenproduzenten Beteiligungs GesmbH; and Leipnik-Lundenburger Invest Beteiligungs AG.

Under a shareholder agreement concluded between Südzucker and ZBG, the partners hold defined nomination rights with respect to AGRANA's governing boards.

In January 2007, Prudential plc, London, reported ownership (together with some of its subsidiaries) of more than 5% of AGRANA's share capital.


AGRANA together with its 8,200 employees worldwide recorded consolidated revenues of 1.9 billion EURO during the 2006|07 fiscal year, underscoring AGRANA's position as a successful globally active Austrian company in the sugar, starch and fruit segments.

AGRANA is one of Austria's largest enterprises in the food and beverage sector and it has also developed a similar position in new EU members Hungar, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania, where it has significant market shares in the sugar and starch markets.

Furthermore AGRANA is the world's leader in fruit preparations and a major player in European fruit juice concentrates market.