In the 2009|10 financial year the AGRANA Group employed an average of 7,927 people (prior year: 8,244). Of this total, 1,735 employees (prior year: 1,730) were based in Austria and 6,192 (prior year: 6,514) worked in the Group’s international companies.
The average number of employees in each business segment was as follows:
- Sugar segment: 2,336 employees (prior year: 2,464);
- Starch segment: 880 employees (prior year: 853);
- Fruit segment: 4,711 employees (prior year: 4,927).
Despite higher capacity utilisation in all sugar beet processing plants and a longer beet processing season, the staff count in the Sugar segment decreased by 128 people based on the average for the year. In connection with a restructuring in the Eastern European factories, Romania’s S.C. Romana Prod s.r.l. was merged into AGRANA Romania S.A. and the Hungarian manufacturing operation of INSTANTINA Hungaria Kft. was transferred to Austria. As a result of the expansion of the starch facility in Gmünd, Austria and the capacity expansion in bioethanol production, the average number of employees in the Starch segment grew by 27 staff members.
The decrease of 216 employees in the fruit preparations activities is explained by reorganisation measures, such as the closure of the plant in Kaplice, Czech Republic, the use of fewer seasonal employees in Ukraine and the streamlining of work processes. In the third quarter of 2009|10 the corporate office of the holding company, AGRANA Fruit S.A.S., was moved from Paris to the location of AGRANA Fruit France in Mitry-Mory, France. In the fruit juice concentrates business, the staff count fell as a result of multiple factors: restructurings in the production operations in Poland, shorter production campaigns in China, the centralisation of logistics and the entire sales support function, and more central management from Austria of accounting and human resources.
