For years, PENNY has consistently and successfully positioned itself as the discounter in the neighbourhood. It is therefore more than obvious that PENNY also wants to be a good neighbour for local agriculture. After all, the major challenges can only be overcome by working together - including with customers. One such project is Zukunftsbauer.
The Zukunftsbauer project was launched in September 2021 by the Berchtesgadener Land dairy and PENNY. The aim is to financially support the energy transformation of agriculture with up to €10,000 per project. To this end, PENNY is waiving part of its margin on each of the current twelve Zukunftsbauer products. BGL doubles the amount. The funding pot totals around 1.8 million euros, which has been used to finance more than 120 projects - mainly PV systems and/or storage systems.
from left: Stefan Görgens, Philipp Stiehler, Bernhard Pointner (managing directors of Molkerei Berchtesgadener Land), Hans-Jürgen Moog
After the first meeting in Cologne in 2023, this year saw the second Future Builders Day, this time in southern Germany. In addition to Hans-Jürgen Moog, Stefan Görgens, Philipp Stiehler and Benjamin Wölk, numerous other PENNY colleagues took part in the day. In addition to in-depth discussions with the producers, they visited the BGL dairy, one of the most modern in Europe, two neighbouring farms and the projects supported there.
The wood chip cogeneration plant and a biogas plant owned by farmer Rupert Helminger, which he also uses to supply his 30 neighbours, were impressive. The automatic feeding robot in Sepp Frank's barn was also fascinating.
The project has also been recognised at a higher level. For example, Milchwerke Berchtesgadener Land Chiemgau eG was honoured with the "Großer Preis des Mittelstandes". With almost 5,000 participating companies, this is not a matter of course.