Agricultural industry ltd

The Agricultural Industry Joint Stock Company was founded in 1890 by the Hungarian General Credit Bank. Its main activities included sugar processing and other tasks related to the agricultural industry (canning, milling, etc.). The company operated a sugar factory, an agricultural plant and a steam mill in Kaposvár, and a sugar factory and refinery in Mezőhegyes. As a result of the continuous expansion of its interests and the development of its factories, its sugar production capacity developed into one of Hungary's leading agricultural companies in the 1930s.

Mezőgazdasági Ipar Aktientársaság was established on the initiative of the Hungarian General Credit Bank. In addition to agricultural activities, it aims to cultivate and develop activities based on the agricultural industry, such as sugar production. The inaugural general meeting of the company took place on 27 October 1890, when the management of the joint-stock company took over the lease of the 44,000 cadastral acres of the Somogy County estate owned by Prince Esterházy, and operated there until 1939.

One of the first achievements of the joint stock company was the commissioning of the Mezőhegyes sugar factory. At the beginning of 1891, the company bought the Mezőhegyes raw sugar factory and refinery, which had been in operation since 1889, from the then Viennese company Károly Stummer for 2.5 million crowns, and which was owned by the company until nationalisation in 1948 (except for the years 1922-1927, when it operated under the name of Mezőhegyes Cukoripar Részvénytársaság).

Reconstruction work carried out there later that year had increased the capacity to process 80 wagons of sugar beet a day and added a refinery. This enabled the factory to reach a unique scale of production before the First World War, supplying sugar not only to the Banat region but also to the Timis County and Transylvania, and from the turn of the century onwards exporting to the Balkans, Italy, Portugal, Great Britain, India and Japan. Three years later, the sugar factory in Kaposvár was founded and started operations in October 1894. As the largest large food processing factory in the region, the factory employed 250-300 workers on a permanent basis per year, and 600-800 temporary workers during the preparation and campaign periods. Even by the standards of the large Somogy farms, the number of permanent servants and casual workers, mainly for sugar beet processing, was considerable, with more than several thousand people employed for six months. In 1916-1917, the Hirschmann steam mill, which had previously operated in the vicinity of the sugar factory but had burnt down, was replaced by a new mill employing 60 workers. The profitability of the joint-stock company is testimony to its success, which until the first half of the First World War was as follows

• 1907: 557 265 K
• 1908: n.a.
• 1909: 777 875 K
• 1910: 956 274 K
• 1911: 1 458 967 K
• 1912: 1 017 026 K
• 1913: 389 066 K
• 1914: 713 583 K
• 1915: 1 015 515 K
• 1916: 1 252 130 K

After the turn of the century, the joint stock company further increased its interests in sugar production. In 1910, it participated in the foundation of the Alföld Cukorgyár Részvénytársaság, and was also involved in the management of the Sarkad sugar factory owned by the latter. The Baranyavár Cukorgyár Részvénytársaság (Baranyavár Sugar Factory Joint Stock Company) was founded in 1911 by the Agricultural Industry Joint Stock Company and Archduke Frederick with a capital of 1.5 million crowns.

In the second half of the First World War, production was increasingly negatively affected by the decline in the quantity of sugar beet processed, the rise in the cost of production inputs and the frequent conscription. All this increased the cost of production. Like other sugar companies, some of the Kaposvár factory's sugar products for export could not be sold. During the war, the daily processing average was around 5 000 to 7 000 m³, and the white sugar yield was around 12 to 13 m³. Despite this, improvements were made on several occasions, first in 1915 and again in 1917, and a 120 km railway line was built to link the factory to the contract market. In 1918, two 600-horsepower steam engines and 400 workers were working in the Kaposvár sugar factory. The other large sugar factory operated under the auspices of the Baranyavár Cukorgyár Részvénytársaság, employing 1 000 workers. In the business year 1917-1918, it processed almost 500,000 m³ of sugar beet into 51,000 m³ of sand sugar and nearly 3,000 m³ of raw sugar.

In the 1920s, the company renewed its efforts to develop its factories and interests, increasing their efficiency and production capacity. In 1920, the company obtained a concession from the state to produce artificial sweetener (saccharin) at the Kaposvár sugar factory. In 1922, a modern refinery was set up at the same factory, and the large capital investment in 1923 increased processing capacity to 120 wagons a day. In addition, the Kaposvár mill increased its grinding capacity from 4 wagons to 6 wagons per day in 1923. In 1924, a silo with a capacity of 300 wagons was built there. In 1922, he extended the lease of the Mezőhegyes ménesbirtok with the Hungarian state for 30 years and founded the Mezőhegyes Sugar Industry Joint Stock Company, which was incorporated in 1927, to exercise these lease rights and to operate the Mezőhegyes industrial plants. Following the development of the sugar factory in 1923, the sugar factory was expanded to a processing capacity of 180 wagons per day after a capital investment of about 3 million pence. The Great Depression had a negative impact on the operation of the joint-stock company and its plants. This is confirmed by the variation in profits over time:

• : 823 561 P
• 1927: 1 110 946 P
• 1928: 1 112 167 P
• 1929: 857 421 P
• 1930: 373 642 P
• 1931: 374 051 P
• 1932: 374 051 P
• 1933: 358 157 P

The company tried to improve the unfavourable conditions by acquiring new shares and expanding its interests. In the 1930s, after the re-annexation of part of the Highlands, it acquired a majority shareholding in the Dióseg Economic, Sugar and Distillery Joint Stock Company together with the Hungarian General Credit Bank. As a result, the Dioszeg sugar factory was put into operation. In addition, the joint-stock company also took an active role in the canning industry: in 1934, it founded a tomato canning factory under the name of Helios Konzervgyár Kft. It also had a canning factory in Diószeg, which, apart from canned tomatoes, produced all kinds of canned vegetables and meat. In the 1930s, the processing capacity of the Kaposvár sugar factory was increased to 200 wagons a day. In addition, in 1936 the factory was expanded with a 2-wagon rye mill and in 1938 with a 2-wagon pea huller. The recovery from the crisis is shown by the fact that by the second half of the 1930s the profits of the joint stock company had also risen compared with the previous years, and the value of these profits was stabilised during the Second World War:

• 1935: 713 181 P
• 1936: 892 396 P
• 1937: 898 632 P
• 1938: 908 848 P
• 1939: 739 396 P
• 1940: 740 943 P
• 1941: 745 639 P
• 1942: 745 796 P
• 1943: 749 052 P

This is also evidenced by the positive development of the company's share price during the period:

Another important achievement of the joint-stock company and the factories operating under its auspices was the start of the quick-freezing experiments in Hungary in 1942 at Diószeg near Bratislava. It was the company that implemented flash freezing on an industrial scale in 1943 and marketed its products under the brand name 'Frigelite'. However, the Second World War interrupted the development and it was only in 1947 that production was taken over by the 'MIRELITÉ' Company (the name was derived from the acronym of the company's former name and the word 'elite').

Sources

Economic, financial and stock market compass 1925-1944.

Great Hungarian Compass 1890-1922.

Press material 1890-1944.

Founded in 1890

Date of cessation: 1947

Founders: Hungarian General Credit Bank

Securities issued:

Decisive leaders:

Main activity: production of agricultural products

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Author: Róbert Szabó