Find out more about Petrella!
At Petrella, we produce cream cheese, cream cheese alternatives and plant-based bread spreads for you, with love and passion. Do you want to know where your favorite Petrella comes from and what is so special special about it? Then take a look here:
Production
Regionality
Our family business is in the heart of the Weserbergland.
If you've always wondered where the Petrella in your fridge comes from, we've got the answer for you: From the beautiful Weserbergland.
You've never heard of the Weserbergland? The Weserbergland is located in the south of Lower Saxony. It‘s the area between Hann. Münden and Porta Westfalica. For many, the Weserbergland is a popular destination for hiking, relaxing and taking a deep breath. Here you can leave the daily stress behind you and recover.
We are proud to be able to produce our delicious Petrella right here. To be more precise: You can find our family business in Glesse. This is a small village with 100 inhabitants on the plateau of Ottenstein in the district of Holzminden, surrounded by green meadows and forests, between the cities Holzminden, Hameln and Bad Pyrmont. There are even more cows than people living. And exactly there, in the heart of the Weserbergland, our delicious Petrella cream cheese with fresh ingredients has been made for over 30 years.
Regional ingredients
Whenever possible, we source the ingredients for our Petrella from regional suppliers. We are connected to companies and suppliers for many years, if not decades. We attach particular importance to a trusting and respectful working relationship.
We also obtain our main ingredient for our Petrella cream cheese, fresh cow's milk, from our dairy farmers in the Weserbergland region. From the Weserbergland means that the milk is collected from a maximum radius of 50 kilometers around our company location. Want to know more?
Living in the Weserbergland, at home throughout Germany. We are proud of what we have achieved with our employees as a family business. You can find our Petrella in almost every supermarket in Germany today.
Start the movie!
A look behind the scenes at Petrella.
In our image film, we introduce you to our suppliers, show you the lush meadows where our Petrella cows graze and convince you that we really do stir our herbs and vegetables into our fresh cheese fresh every day.
That's not enough for you? No problem! In our image film, we also take you on a journey into our production facilities.
Here you can get an exclusive insight into the preparation process and see how fresh cow's milk is turned into the delicious Petrella you can enjoy on your breakfast table. See for yourself!
Milk catchment area
Weserbergland cows provide our fresh Petrella milk.
The milk that makes our Petrella so delicious comes from the heart of the Weserbergland. Several times a day, our own milk collection trucks make their way through our beautiful region to collect the milk from the surrounding farms.
But we don't have to travel far for our good Petrella milk, as we reach all our milk suppliers within a maximum radius of 50 km around our company location. The advantage of our idyllic location is the large, lush and green meadows around the Weser.
So can our Petrella cows breathe in the fresh Weserbergland air and eat the lush pasture grass under the best weather conditions. Even when the weather isn't so great, our milk suppliers make sure our Petrella cows are well taken care of. Our Petrella cows are in the best of hands at our family farms, with barns that provide plenty of outdoor climate contact and massage brushes for relaxation.
We are proud to say that we maintain long-standing, cooperative relationships with our milk suppliers. Thereby, we can guarantee that all our Petrella cows are kept in the most advanced and animal-friendly way. We support our farmers in adhering to current animal husbandry standards, which allows us to benefit from the best milk. Our Petrella milk is also 100% genetically modified organism (GMO) free, as our milk suppliers use only GMO-free feed.
Freshness
Only ingredients from your own garden are fresher.
Freshness is our middle name. We receive fresh herbs and vegetables from our suppliers several times a day and process them the same day in our in-house vegetable kitchen. Whether juicy red peppers, fresh chives, spicy garlic or crunchy spring onions - all ingredients find their way into our delicious Petrella products in the best quality during preparation.
Shortly after we have received our ingredients and checked them for the desired quality, we wash them to prepare them for further processing. While some ingredients can already be chopped by machine, garlic processing still requires real manual labor. Every clove of garlic is peeled by hand by our hard-working employees in the “vegetable kitchen” and inspected for the best quality, so we can proudly say: We only process the best of every garlic clove.
Fresh Weserbergland milk
We also collect the milk we use for our delicious Petrella cream cheese from our milk suppliers several times a day to ensure the best quality and freshness. The fresh Weserbergland milk is then examined in our in-house dairy and prepared for further processing. We ensure that the milk tankers are filled with milk very carefully and that the milk is heated in order to preserve all of the milk's ingredients during preparation.
Would you like to see our freshness for yourself?
Traditional production
We produce cream cheese with passion.
Here at Petrella, tradition and modernity go hand in hand. Our delicious Petrella products are prepared using the latest technology - but we have not forgotten our craft. A traditional production method with a lot of manual work is particularly important to us for our Petrella cream cheese
We still use the traditional cloth pressing method to prepare our fresh cheese. Here, our curdled milk matures in a cheesecloth until the whey has completely drained off. Once the cream cheese has drained well, it is removed from the cheesecloth by hand by our employees and goes into the production of our cream cheese preparation, where further ingredients are added.
In combination with our fresh herbs and vegetables, this creates a very special cream cheese: our Petrella.
Sustainable action
Sustainability is a top priority for us.
For us as a family business, sustainability is a social, economic and environmentally conscious responsibility. In addition to the three pillars of sustainability - ecology, economy and social responsibility - our company philosophy of sustainability includes the aspect of animal welfare in particular.
But what exactly does sustainable action mean?
- As a company with deep regional roots, it is important to us to support children and young people in the region. For example, we sponsor various sports clubs.
- As a balanced diet is also part of a healthy lifestyle alongside sport, we organize “healthy breakfasts” in kindergartens and schools in the region.
- As an important employer in the region, we are also committed to training skilled workers. We offer training in six different professions and a dual study program in business administration and also promote various further training measures.
- When selecting our suppliers, who preferably come from our region in order to set an example for sustainability, long-term relationships based on partnership are very important to us.
- We source our main ingredient, milk, from within a maximum radius of 50 km from our company headquarters.
- The production of our Petrella produces whey, which we use as animal feed.
- Our energy management also helps us to constantly reduce our energy consumption, for example by converting to LED lighting.
With all these measures, we are always trying to improve in order to do good for ourselves, our environment and the planet.
Our history
What began in the home kitchen with a Krups blender has developed into a true success story in the dairy industry.
Find out more about our journey and click on the timeline.
1991 - The market launch of Petrella
Since the company was founded, Claus Petri has been constantly trying out new recipes and approaches in order to successfully sell his cream cheese to food retailers. However, until then, they had no room for a new, unknown cream cheese on their counters. In 1991, when he came up with the innovative idea of presenting his Petrella kilo trays in a glass goblet, the base of which, with a diameter of only approx. 5 cm, took up very little space, the food retailer actually added it to his fresh cheese counter and so our Petrella success story began.
1995 - Petrella is the best-selling fresh cheese in German cheese counters
Petrella quickly develops into a bestseller since its listing in the food retail trade in 1991, as it is placed above all other fresh cheeses in the fresh food counters thanks to its placement in a glass cup. As a result, it becomes the focus of end consumers and finds its place in many other cheese counters, making it the best-selling fresh cheese in German cheese counters with a market share of over 70%.
1997 - Petrella finds its way onto the self-service shelf
We also spent a long time working on the right cup for self-service packaging. After trying out many different formats, we finally develop a suitable self-service packaging. Our delicious Petrella cream cheese is now also available in the chives variety on German self-service shelves. The leek/leek and paprika varieties quickly follow.
2002 - Start of in-house milk processing
As more and more dairies are gradually closed in Germany, we acquire many dairy farmers from the Weserbergland region and finally start our very own milk processing facility. In this way, we remain viable for the future and can continue to guarantee that we can supply our customers with fresh Petrella at all times.
2003 - Petrella changes its packaging format
We change our self-service packaging to the very special Petrella shape that we still use today. The packaging shape is unique on the market and ensures immediate recognition.
2007 - Our first TV campaign
Petrella - any fresher would be outrageous. In 2007, we appeared on television for the first time with our own TV commercial. We even made our own costumes for the actors in this well-known commercial. This is our first major campaign to communicate to end consumers that our Petrella cream cheese is made from fresh herbs and vegetables - a quality feature that makes our Petrella so special to this day!
2016 - 25 years of Petrella
25 years of Petrella - what a milestone. To celebrate the 25th birthday of our Petrella, we even created our very own variety: the anniversary Petrella. It contains the vegetables and herbs that make our Petrella varieties so special: fresh chives, paprika, parsley and garlic. We also create our first image film, in which we provide exclusive insights into our fresh cheese preparation and everything that makes our Petrella so special.
2017 - Petrella changes its packaging
Our Petrella doesn't have to hide. That's why we decided in 2017 to only present our Petrella in transparent tubs from now on. This allows you to see what awaits you directly on the chiller shelf: an incomparable cream cheese preparation, filled into the packaging in rosette form and partly sprinkled with fresh herbs.
2019 - Petrella can now also be found on social media
Society is evolving, especially when it comes to digitality. We at Petrella also launched our own Instagram channel in 2019. Here we report weekly from our Petrella world of freshness and reveal a few secrets about us and our Petrella. Other social media platforms will gradually follow, so that we are now Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and LinkedIn to tell new stories and share recipe ideas. Take a look at our website!
2023 - We launch the first vegan product line on the market
Because we love our Petrella so much and also want to give vegan or lactose-free people the opportunity to share this lifestyle with us, we have decided to establish a total of three vegan cream cheese alternatives on the German market for the first time in 2023. After the market launch at the beginning of the year with the two varieties Petrella Vegan with fresh chives and Petrella Vegan Peppasweet was a complete success, we are launching a third variety at the end of the year: Petrella Vegan with fresh garlic & herbs.
2024 - Our new plant-based alternative: savory lentil cream
Plant-based nutrition is on trend and the demand for plant-based alternatives is growing all the time. That's why we have decided to add a second, 100% plant-based product range to our 2024 range: Petrella Lentil. Our lentil cream is made from red lentils and is just as convincing as a spread as it is as a dip or as an addition to cooking. The product portfolio includes three varieties: Mango & Curry, Paprika and Grilled Vegetables.