About Agral Butter
The values
Agral Butter produces butter for consumers. Passion, know-how and flexibility: the keywords that make Agral Butter the ideal partner to develop a unique butter in respect of tradition.
Passion
Agral Butter is first and foremost an authentic passion for butter: respect for a traditional product that makes natural flavour its intrinsic quality. At Agral Butter, we know that the careful selection of ingredients, together with a masterful production of butter are the essential factors to ensure the production of quality butter.
Know-how
Butter producers for 40 years, Agral Butter today boasts considerable know-how and offers a wide range of butters to different types of customers: artisan butter, hand-packaged butter, reduced-fat butter, aromatised butter and many more besides. And it does all this in complete respect for the natural raw ingredients and the artisan techniques used for certain production methods.
Flexibility
Firm in its understanding that each market is different and consumer trends evolve over time, Agral Butter chooses to be extremely flexible and open in its approach. This positive attitude earns Agral Butter a top position as the ideal partner to develop a butter that meets all your needs and expectations. Agral Butter offers an extensive range of butters designed to meet the specific needs of the consumers of each market and offer packaging that varies from the practical butter in the dish to that supplied in aluminium foil and according to the requirements of the various different European countries.
The brands
Agral Butter sells its own brands on the Belgian market. These brands are part of the cultural heritage of many families.
Les Coteaux is one of the best-selling products on the market. The logo featuring the hazelnuts recalls the nutty flavour found in the butter produced from fresh cream.
Lucien Massaux, Jean-Marie Cabay and Marc Guiselin, to mention just some of those who have helped build up the fame of Agral Butter, creators of butters in parchment paper, packaged by hand in the great farming tradition of butter-making.
With Héritage 1466, Agral Butter also offers a brand of butter available in numerous formats and recipes for export. The Héritage 1466 brand is available to Agral Butter customers not wanting to develop specific packaging.
It is available in a wide range of variants, as a pat or in the dish, with 82% fat content or in a reduced-fat version. With Héritage 1466, Agral Butter is sure to have the multi-lingual packaging you need for your market.
The history
From a hangar to an ultra-modern production plant...
If we start our story off in the time-honoured tradition of "Once upon a time...", we could continue with "... in a little hangar...".
The story starts back in 1971, when the company's current director, Jean-Marie Cabay took over the business of Lucien Massaux, a well-known figure in the region of Charleroi.
One thing led to another and the business gradually developed, putting butter-making know-how to good end. The success enjoyed amongst its consumers meant that Agral Butter soon found itself a little short of space in its production plant, despite having already moved over the years.
The resumption in 1998 of the business of S.A. Godefroid-Seron and its brand known to Belgian consumers as "Les Côteaux" gave new life to Agral Butter.
In 1997, Agral Butter began construction a production site in the industrial district of Courcelles. The site will be opened in September 1999.
In 2003, a production line of reduced-fat butter was installed in the workshops.
Commercial procedures, and specifically for export, rapidly became a success and business developed from year to year.
In the meantime, in 2005, Agral Butter achieved certification by I.F.S. (International Food Standard), and in 2007 B.R.C. (British Retail Consortium).
Producing more than 10,000 tonnes of butter a year, the 2009 construction of new workshops on the Courcelles site successfully doubled the company's surface area.
The new site, started-up late 2010, optimised circulation of flows within the company and enabled a reasoned use of energy. New prospects in terms of flexibility became available to Agral Butter, giving it the chance to write new pages in its history and pursue its growth in volumes. Its range of butters has never stopped growing in terms of different recipes and packaging formats.
Copyright 2015 Agral S.A., all rights reserved - I1 rue du Brabant Wallon B 6180 COURCELLES - BELGIUM
Telephone: +32 (0)71 45 14 61 - Fax: +32 (0) 71 46 01 42 - info@agral.be
Brought to life by ALIVE & K