efko is required – fear of stopping gas: “We have no plan B”

What if the gas stops flowing? “Then the goods stay on the field,” says Klaus Hraby without hesitation. “You can’t keep cucumbers, in the worst case a huge amount of them would spoil,” says the efko boss, describing the scenario that causes him to sleep badly, as he reveals. The food manufacturer from Hinzenbach needs gas for the steam boilers, which are in turn needed for pasteurization.

Cucumber harvest in full swing earlier than ever
What calms the nerves for the time being: Thanks to favorable weather conditions, the cucumber harvest started in mid-June this year. “We had already acquired more than 1,000 tons of cucumbers by the end of June, full of goods – there has never been such an early year,” says Hraby, whose motto applies: “What we have, we have.”

Short-term damage limitation
With the conversion of the boilers to combi-burners so that they can burn both oil and gas, efko should be better able to cope with the looming energy crisis from September: “This is short-term damage limitation, we do not have a plan B .”

The relaxation is in sight in the packaging market: efko needs 70 million glasses per year, “of which we initially missed 14 million”, says Hraby. Solutions have now been found here, the majority of the glasses are already stored on the company premises, “some still have to be produced”.

Demand? “Our business is running as expected.” The Hinzenbach-based company had halted actions in consultation with the trade over concerns about the lack of harvest workers from Ukraine.