Heinz Gries, Chairman of the Foundation Board and fully authorised representative of Griesson - de Beukelaer (GdB), celebrates his 80th birthday on 17 May 2015. During the past decades, the entrepreneur from the Eifel town of Polch in Rhineland-Palatinate has made a substantial contribution to the development of the family business into one of the leading companies in the European sweet and savoury biscuit market.
The success of GdB is inseparably connected with Heinz Gries: under his guidance the company succeeded in making popular brands such as Prinzen Rolle, Griesson Soft Cake or TUC crackers known in almost every German household. Prinzen Rolle, which is also celebrating an anniversary this year with its 60th birthday, is the best-selling biscuit in Germany to this day. The exemplary entrepreneur has received various top-class honours for his services: in 2004 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on the ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2009 the industry honoured him with the Golden Sugarloaf, the most important award in the German food industry, for his life’s work. The magazine Impulse and the INTES Academy voted him one of the Family Entrepreneurs of the Year in 2011.
Strong brands and consistent expansion
A banking professional by training, in 1955 he joined the parental company and after the death of his father Hans Gries in 1967 took over sole ownership of the traditional company Griesson, which at that time was mainly a seasonal producer of gingerbread products. Heinz Gries recognised the signs in the market early on, along with the opportunity of cost-effective industrial production combined with high standards of quality and technology: he condensed the product range, removed the seasonal dependency and set the growing market in motion with new product innovations and alternatives. The new product range included bestsellers such as the fruity Soft Cake, the SchokoKeks or the Café Musica biscuit assortment. Gries relied on perfect automation, the best recipes and optimal quality production.
The further growth required entrepreneurial courage: in Polch a new production site was constructed in 1969 – just the same as in Kahla (Thuringia) in 1991, which up to today, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is one of the most modern biscuit factories in Europe. As a result of the investments in Kahla, Heinz Gries became one of the pioneers of German industry after the reunification. The entrepreneur was also substantially responsible for the further development of the family company in the following years – including the merger with the Danone subsidiary General Biscuits Deutschland und Österreich and the renaming of the company as Griesson - de Beukelaer GmbH & Co. KG.
A milestone: the establishment of a family foundation in 2014
In May 2007 Heinz Gries and Andreas Land took over the 40 percent shareholding which Groupe Danone, Paris, had held in GdB up to then. The company was thus once again completely family-owned. One of the milestones in the entrepreneurial life of Heinz Gries was his decision in 2014 to transfer his shareholding in GdB to the Gottlieb Anton-Stiftung, a foundation he had established. In this way during his lifetime he is securing the succession for the shareholding in the company, and is ensuring long-term stability and reliability in his responsibility for the employees too. By means of the family foundation the close connection between the company and the family has been strengthened once again across the succession of generations, and the independence of Griesson - de Beukelaer is ensured.
Heinz Gries chairs the Foundation Board, the most important management body of the foundation. In this function, even at the age of 80 he is still closely connected with the company Griesson - de Beukelaer, which is managed by Andreas Land as Chairman of the Executive Board.