About Elite

Elite

Elite is Germany's specialist magazine for cattle breeding and livestock farming, published in Münster by the Landwirtschaftsverlag GmbH — one of Europe's largest agricultural publishers. Addressing dairy and beef producers, breeders, consultants, and the upstream and downstream industries, it combines practical breeding journalism with scientific depth: internationally renowned authors from practice, consulting, and research write alongside the competent editorial team — a knowledge network few specialist magazines can match. With IVW-audited circulation of 13,626 paid copies (Q2/2024), a digital knowledge platform, training offerings, and the milchkuh brand extension for dairy producers, Elite is the professional forum of German cattle breeding — and one of the agricultural press's most successful and most trusted specialist titles.

Overview

Elite serves the cattle industry's professional core: dairy farmers, beef producers, pedigree breeders, breeding organizations, veterinarians, nutrition consultants, and the companies supplying genetics, feed, housing technology, and equipment. The editorial concept bridges the barn and the laboratory: breeding values and genomic selection, herd management, feeding, animal health, housing technology, and farm economics — the full decision spectrum of the modern livestock enterprise, where a single breeding decision shapes a decade of herd productivity.

The author model is distinctive: alongside the editorial team, internationally renowned authors from practice, consulting, and research contribute — the breeding scientist explaining genomic selection, the practitioner reporting from the barn, the consultant analyzing farm economics. This gives the magazine the character of a professional congress in print, where the industry's knowledge holders share their expertise directly with the practitioners who apply it. The publisher's media data emphasizes the combination of future-oriented information, an attractive digital knowledge offering, and numerous training opportunities.

Circulation is audited by the IVW: 14,600 distributed copies, 13,626 paid, 13,111 subscribed (Q2/2024) — a high subscription share indicating the loyal professional readership typical of agricultural specialist media, where the magazine is a working tool rather than casual reading. The MAagrar 2023 reach study documents the title's position in the agricultural media market. The brand family extends beyond the flagship: the milchkuh title, launched in autumn 2022 with a starting circulation of about 25,000, addresses dairy producers across associations and breeds with breeding-relevant content.

History

Elite is published by the Landwirtschaftsverlag GmbH of Münster — the agricultural publishing house at Hülsebrockstraße 2–8, 48165 Münster, whose portfolio includes the weekly top agrar, the leading German agricultural magazine, and a wide range of specialist titles. The Landwirtschaftsverlag's livestock publications have documented German animal breeding through the great transformations of the post-war decades: from the small mixed farm to the specialized dairy enterprise, from visual selection to genomic breeding values, from the tie-stall to the robotic milking barn — a chronicle of agriculture's most knowledge-intensive sector.

The brand-family strategy reflects the publisher's response to market segmentation: while Elite serves the breeding-focused professional, milchkuh — launched in autumn 2022 as "a new specialist magazine of the Elite brand family" — addresses the entirety of milk producers regardless of individual farm and management structures, with association- and breed-spanning reportage, interviews, analyses, and specialist articles. The launch materials quote the editorial philosophy: breeding is a success-determining factor, and every dairy farm can only achieve top results if the genetics are right — a creed that unites the brand family across its titles. The new title's sections — Szene (breeding-scene news, trends, events, young breeders), Einblick (farm visits), Strategie (breeding and herd-management strategies from practice), Zuchtwerte (current breeding values, traits, developments) — mirror the flagship's editorial architecture in a dairy-focused format.

The digital evolution added the online knowledge platform, newsletters, social-media channels, and online competitions — the modern engagement tools of specialist publishing, layered atop the print magazine's authority. The best-practice special newsletters, such as the November special on optimizing calf rearing for providers of housing technology, drinking systems, bedding, hygiene, and feeding, demonstrate the title's service to both readers and the supplying industry.

Coverage and Content

Breeding coverage forms the core: genomic selection, breeding values, sire selection ("which bull fits which cow"), breed portraits, and the strategies of successful breeding operations. The magazine visits breeders and dissects their success recipes — the Einblick format that makes abstract genetics concrete through real herds, showing readers not just the numbers but the management behind them. Herd-management coverage addresses fertility, health, claw care, and the data-driven management of modern dairy operations, including robotic milking and sensor technology.

Feeding and nutrition coverage follows ration formulation, forage quality, and the feed industry's innovations — the daily economics of the dairy enterprise, where feed costs determine margins. Housing-technology coverage addresses barn construction, ventilation, bedding, and animal welfare — the physical environment of production, and increasingly the subject of societal debate and regulation. Farm-economics coverage analyzes the numbers: milk prices, production costs, and the investment decisions that determine competitiveness. Scene coverage reports news from the breeding world — shows, auctions, young-breeder activities — maintaining the community's social fabric. The breeding show, the elite auction, the young-breeders' competition: these are the rituals where the profession renews itself, and the magazine is their chronicler.

The milchkuh extension deepens the dairy coverage with its own editorial team (including editor Katrin Hilbk-Kortenbruck at launch), while the flagship Elite keeps the broader livestock and breeding focus. The training offerings — seminars, workshops, and the digital knowledge platform — extend the editorial mission into professional education, serving a readership for whom continuous learning is a production factor: the genetics change, the technology changes, and the breeder who stops learning falls behind.

Organization and Ownership

Elite is published by the Landwirtschaftsverlag GmbH, Hülsebrockstraße 2–8, 48165 Münster (P.O. Box 48084 Münster) — one of Europe's leading agricultural publishers, whose managing directors are Dr. Ludger Schulze Pals and Malte Schwerdtfeger. The editor-in-chief is Gregor Veauthier (redaktion@elitemagazin.de); the publisher (Verleger) is Ludger Burholt. Advertising sales run through LV-Media Sales, the publisher's media-sales unit, which markets the title's print, digital, and event offerings as an integrated portfolio.

Circulation is IVW-audited: 14,600 distributed, 13,626 paid, 13,111 subscribed copies (Q2/2024). The magazine participates in the MAagrar reach study, the agricultural media market's currency. Contact for the editorial office: +49 2501/801-8803; service email service@elitemagazin.de. Financial details of the publication are not publicly confirmed — the Landwirtschaftsverlag discloses group-level rather than title-level figures.

Digital Presence

The digital home elitemagazin.de hosts the online knowledge platform, news, and the newsletter offerings — including thematic special newsletters such as the best-practice editions on calf rearing, which give suppliers of housing technology, drinking systems, bedding, hygiene, and feeding a professionally precise advertising environment. Social-media channels maintain the community connection, and online competitions engage readers interactively. The LV-Media Sales media data documents the digital advertising formats, from display advertising and article placement to newsletter sponsorships.

For an agricultural specialist magazine, the digital strategy centers on professional utility and community: the knowledge platform serves the breeder's information needs between issues, the newsletters deliver curated briefings, and the training offerings extend the brand into education — the magazine as the industry's continuing-education institution. The milchkuh launch demonstrated the publisher's digital-first brand extension capability — a new title conceived for the cross-association dairy audience with its own digital presence. In an industry where the breeding decision shapes a decade of herd productivity, Elite's combination of scientific depth, practical relevance, and institutional continuity gives it a durable position — the professional forum where German cattle breeding thinks, debates, and learns, from the genomic laboratory to the calving pen.