The WIMEX Group is an internationally active German company in the meat and agricultural industry, based in Köthen, Saxony-Anhalt.

In 1985, Wagner finally founded the WIMEX Agrarprodukte Import und Export GmbH 1985 in Regenstauf for the production of hatching eggs.

[12] Managing director Gerhard Wagner was president of the lobby organisation Zentralverband der Deutschen Geflügelwirtschaft (Central Association of the German Poultry Industry, ZDG) from 2001 to 2011.

[26] From 2011 to 2016, managing director Leopold Graf von Drechsel was president of the ZDG[27] and on the executive committee of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Tierzüchter (Association of German Animal Breeders).

[28] WIMEX founder Gerhard Wagner received the Federal Cross of Merit in 2013 for his contribution to the integration of the two German states after reunification.

According to the Heinrich Böll Foundation's meat atlas (Fleischatlas), WIMEX was one of the largest emitters of ammonia in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, contributing to the acidification of soils, the overfertilization of groundwater and the formation of health-damaging particulate matter.

[30] In 2017, the research organization Correctiv published a data analysis according to which the nitrate content of the groundwater around the WIMEX farms in and around Baasdorf exceeded the limit value by almost double.

[9][29] In 2010, ARD magazin Report Mainz broadcast footage published by the animal rights organization PETA of a parent-animal farm in Natenstedt, Lower Saxony,[31][32] which showed chickens being kicked and thrown several meters against walls.

[33] The parent-animal farm was a WIMEX contract producer, and the buyer of the hatching eggs was the PHW Group subsidiary Wiesenhof.

[38][39] Among them were parent-animal farms run by WIMEX, whose CEO Graf von Drechsel was president of the Zentralverband der Deutschen Geflügelwirtschaft at the time.

[40] In 2017, the television magazine Frontal 21 and Spiegel Online reported on recent footage published by ARIWA from five WIMEX parent animal farms in Baasdorf, Rosefeld, Wettin-Löbejün, Wettin, and Pilsenhöh.

[41] ARIWA also criticized the fact that fodder was only available for one hour a day and that water was not continuously available either, which led to the sensation of hunger given the animals were bred for rapid weight gain.

[5] In 2017, the investigative journalism organisation Correctiv published research on how many subsidies WIMEX receives through its various subsidiaries and then cross-referenced the findings with data on pollutant emissions from the farms.

Correctiv criticized that WIMEX receives public subsidies in large amounts, but at the same time harms the common good in the form of factory farming as well as environmental pollution.

[49][50] Regarding a planned construction in Cochstedt with a capacity of 80,000 animals, WIMEX announced in June 2016 that it would not pursue the project due to ongoing protest from the public.