The founder of EW Group —parent company of Aviagen, Lohmann, Hy-Line, Hubbard, Vaxxinova, Hygiena and EW Nutrition— celebrated his 80th birthday by announcing the creation of the Erich Wesjohann Foundation, a charitable foundation focused on health, nutrition and education in developing countries
On 4 June 2025, Erich Wesjohann, founder of EW Group, turned 80. A low-key milestone, in keeping with the founder’s characteristically modest public profile, yet one that has provided an opportunity to update the picture of one of the most influential corporate groups in the global poultry supply chain and to learn a little more about the man behind it.
Updated figures: the group already exceeds €5.5 billion
The most recent publications marking the birthday revise the group’s size upwards compared with the best-known public figures (€3,970 million in turnover and 17,467 employees for the 2021/2022 financial year). Today EW Group:
- Comprises — more than 300 active companies worldwide.
- Employs — more than 28,000 people.
- Generates — more than €5.5 billion in annual turnover.
- Remains family-owned — the board of directors comprises Erich Wesjohann, his three children —who have been in management roles for more than 20 years— and two external executives.
| «Erich Wesjohann attributes EW Group’s success to two pillars: ‘top people’ and a sustained commitment to R&D, which is increasingly carried out in the countries where the subsidiaries are based, not solely in Germany.» |
From his father’s agricultural trading business to a global group
Wesjohann’s own account of EW Group’s origins neatly encapsulates the organic growth logic that defines the group today. It all begins with his father’s agricultural trading business, in which his brother Paul-Heinz also worked. The first major turning point came in 1965 with a joint venture between the hatchery Mastkükenbrüterei Weser-Ems and the firm Lohmann Cuxhaven.
In the early 1970s, the brothers planned the Mega-Futtermühle (the “mega feed mill”), which had to triple its capacity just a few years later. This was followed by an entry into the slaughter business and, in the mid-1980s, into mushroom production. By the end of that decade, the Wesjohann brothers had become majority shareholders of Lohmann & Co. AG.
In 1998, as part of a generational succession process, the brothers split the company. Erich retained the bulk of the animal and plant genetics business, which would later become EW Group; Paul-Heinz took the slaughter and processing business, the seed of today’s PHW Group (Wiesenhof).
Research and decentralisation: the “Wesjohann model”
When asked about his formula for success, Erich Wesjohann points to two pillars: top people and R&D. Research, he says, is one of the group’s great cornerstones and is increasingly conducted in the countries where the subsidiaries are located, not solely in Germany.
The founder himself acknowledges an illustrative case that highlights the weight of the regulatory environment: Lohmann’s layer genetic selection programme in Cuxhaven was relocated —due to a lack of political assurances for the continuation of the activity— and the lines were moved to Spain, Scotland and Canada. In Germany, the group retains R&D centres in Cologne, Potsdam and Dresden, and has developed a relatively new line of business: plant genetics.
“Without local livestock farming there is no innovation”: the EW Group founder’s warning to Europe on his 80th birthday
In the small space that his birthday opens up for personal opinion, Wesjohann is clear and pulls no punches: the north-west region of Germany —historically a major livestock processing area— needs to be able to build new, modern, environmentally responsible facilities, and that requires regulatory simplification. He points in particular to environmental collective action rights (Verbandsklagerecht) as a barrier to investment.
| «The consequence is that there is little investment, virtually no new construction, and the transition to more animal-friendly production systems is being blocked. Without local livestock farming, the foundation for innovation and value chain transformation disappears.» |
It is a message that will resonate across much of the European poultry sector —including in Spain— where regulatory burden and administrative lead times regularly feature among the main obstacles to the modernisation of production facilities.
Erich Wesjohann Foundation: a legacy beyond business
The piece of news that is truly newsworthy in its own right: to mark his 80th birthday, the entrepreneur has announced the creation of the Erich Wesjohann Foundation, a non-profit entity that will focus on health, food and education, particularly in developing countries.
For a group whose brands (Aviagen, Lohmann, Hy-Line, Hubbard, EW Nutrition, Vaxxinova) are present in many of those very countries through the poultry supply chain, the move carries a coherent logic: animal genetics and animal health are tools for food security, and the foundation appears designed to extend that rationale into the social sphere.
When asked about the current geopolitical situation, Wesjohann expresses a deliberately understated wish for the generations to come: the strengthening of the democratic order and world peace.
An austere declaration, befitting an entrepreneur shaped by post-war rural Germany, who has quietly built one of the world’s largest poultry empires without ever leaving his headquarters in Visbek, a small town in Lower Saxony.
For further information:
-. News about EW GROUP on NeXusAvicultura
-. Geflügelnews — “Happy Birthday, Erich Wesjohann!”, 4 June 2025 (https://www.gefluegelnews.de/article/happy-birthday-erich-wesjohann).