Harald Suchanka, CEO of Handtmann Maschinenfabrik, the division of filling and portioning systems within the Handtmann Group, announced yesterday that Handtmann Maschinenfabrik has executed a share purchase agreement with VERBUFA. VERBUFA has been operating as the exclusive distributor for Handtmann machines in the Benelux for more than 55 years. It is an innovative food processing solution provider and has also developed their own VERBUFA machine solutions in the areas of forming/cutting, dosing and co-extrusion, some of which Handtmann is already marketing.

Mark Marrink, who joined the family-owned company in 1994 and took over management from his father Wim Marrink in 2003, will continue to contribute all of his experience and leadership skills and play a key role in the merger of Handtmann and VERBUFA. With immediate effect, he will act in a new role as Chief Business Development & Innovation Officer for the Handtmann Filling and Portioning Systems division.

“The integration of Verbufa into our group of companies marks an important strategic step towards an even stronger positioning in international competition,” said Thomas Handtmann, Managing Partner of the family-owned business, “because the food processing industry is undergoing profound change towards digitization, globalization and individualization and with it, changing customer needs.”

Suchanka notes that, “Following the acquisition of Inotec this past year, we are now taking the next logical step in providing our customers with holistic solutions. As a long-standing partner, Verbufa can contribute excellent industry insight and expertise in the development of customized customer solutions.”

The merger of the two companies generates, above all, a high level of innovative strength for process-oriented concepts and solutions in the areas of forming, dosing, co-extruding and process automation.

“I am confident that the overarching interlinking of our development and engineering expertise and the combined knowledge of the market will produce substantial added value for our customers worldwide,” states Mark Marrink, previous owner of Verbufa and future Operations Manager of the new Handtmann subsidiary.