Marel Food Systems is an Icelandic based multi-national food processing company that manufactures and provides equipment, systems, software and services to the poultry, meat and fish processing industries.
Marel by the numbers
Food Processing Industry
Marel’s origin derives from the Icelandic Seafood Industry. The company was founded as a private company back in 1983 following a project at the University of Iceland. The aim of the project was to find ways to help the Icelandic fisheries sector to boost production and improve efficiency.
Since its founding, Marel has grown steadily and has become a leading global provider of advanced equipment, systems and services to the fish processing industry, as well as the meat and poultry processing industries. Today, Marel employs over 5,000 people globally, and 99% of its earnings are earned outside of Iceland.
Marel has grown its market share across the three verticals by investing heavily in innovation in combination with selective bolt-on acquisitions. The company invests about 6% of its revenues on innovation With annual sales of roughly $1 billion, this corresponds to an investment of $60m.
Stork B.V. and Other Subsidiaries
In 2008, Marel capped off a series of bolt-ons with the acquisitions of the Dutch food processing company Stork Food Systems. The purchase doubled the size of the company and market the entry of Marel into the meat and poultry verticals.
Timeline of Marel Acquisitions
- 1997: Carnitech in Denmark
- 2002: CP Food Machinery
- 2004: Pols in Iceland
- 2006: AEW Delford in the UK
- 2006: Scanvaegt in Denmark
- 2008: Stork Food Systems in the Netherlands
- 2016: MPS in the Netherlands
- 2017: Sulmaq in Brazil
Nordic Nasdaq Listing
Marel went public on the Icelandic Stock Exchange in 1992.
Eyrir Invest
A cornerstone shareholder of Marel is Eyrir Invest, an Icelandic investment company that holds 190,366,838 shares in Marel, corresponding to 27.89% of the outstanding shares. Eyrir Invest has been the principal shareholder in Marel since 2005.
Thordur Magnusson, the Chairman of Eyrir Invest is the father of Marel’s chief executive, Arni Oddur Thordarson.