About us

2 hands holding malt kernels

Your partner for aroma and taste

IREKS is an internationally operating family company with its headquarters in Kulmbach, Germany, and customers in 90 countries worldwide.

As a partner for aroma and taste, we produce high-quality baking ingredients for bread and rolls as well as for confectionery baked goods – from improvers and mixes to malts and sourdoughs.

In our malthouses, we produce a wide range of base and speciality malts from which large breweries and craft brewers create unique beers.

The business divisions of flavourings and ice cream products complete our product range.

We determine the properties and quality of our most important grain raw materials as well as subsequent products right from the selection of the seeds. By means of permanent quality controls and complete traceability, we guarantee our customers the highest safety possible.

We are more than 3,000 team workers all over the world who lend a hand. What unites us across borders is our IREKS spirit.

Our motivation: to make good things even better!

 

Locations in 24 countries are the anchor points for our global network. This means we are close to our customers who, at the same time, benefit from our international expertise. Through the worldwide exchange of experience, we recognize trends where they emerge and, together with you, turn them into innovative products.

Our solutions are as individual as our customers. IREKS – a partner who fits with your concept!

Our business divisions

Baking ingredients


A passion for the craft, know-how and first-class ingredients are the guarantee for good bread, morning goods and confectionery baked goods. With a wide range of mixes, improvers, malt and sourdough products, we offer products that are being precisely tailored to the requirements of bakeries and their customers, complemented by a multi-faceted range of services. Customers in over 90 countries particularly appreciate the individual support provided by our competent Field Staff with over 500 experts from the baking industry, who are available to them as personal contacts and solution providers on site.

Agricultural trade


When it comes to our basic raw materials, we are involved in the entire value-added chain in many ways – from the field to storage and transport to preparation and finally further processing into baking ingredients and malts. The basis for this is our own agricultural trade, through which we have been in close contact with the agricultural sector since 1885. This proximity comes with decisive advantages, because it allows us to influence the properties and quality of the raw materials and the resulting products right from the selection of the seeds.

Malts for brewing


Since the company foundation, malts for brewing have been part of the core business of the IREKS Group. As early as 1856, master baker and brewer Johann Peter Ruckdeschel opened his own commercial malthouse in Kulmbach, thus laying the foundation for our company. Now, we offer a diverse range of base and speciality malts. To do so, we use our wealth of experience and process the best grain with creativity using state-of-the-art technology and tight quality controls. Large breweries as well as craft brewers all over the world appreciate the variety of aroma and taste they can generate by using our malts in their beers.

Flavourings, confectionery products & ice cream


The Langenfeld-based traditional company DREIDOPPEL has been part of the IREKS family of companies since 2004 and completes our competence in the confectionery baked goods sector with flavourings, confectionery pastes, cream stabilizers, gelling agents, fruit fillings as well as cooking cream powder, cold and fat creams. The range is complemented by ice cream products of the GELATOP brand. Our subsidiary LUMEN also provides ice-cold refreshments! As a pioneer in the ice cream industry, it has been selling soft ice cream machines and matching ice cream mixes since 1962 and offers an all-round service package on top.