DS Smith has confirmed it will invests €16.7m in a plant expansion in Germany to serve its FMCG and e-commerce customers. DS Smith’s plant in Arnstadt, Thuringia, will be expanded with a new state-of-the-art corrugator from BHS Corrugated and materials handling system from Dücker.
The recent ground-breaking ceremony marked the start of construction work to renovate and expand the plant, which will take place while production continues and will span the next 12 months.
Uwe Väth, Managing Director, DS Smith Packaging for Germany and Switzerland, said, “We are pleased that the expansion of our plant in Thuringia will enable us to significantly expand our offering for our customers in the e-commerce and fast moving consumer goods sectors. We have been recording steady growth in both areas for some time, which was also supported last year in particular by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on purchasing behaviour. All forecasts, as well as our own market surveys, indicate that online retailing will continue to grow in the future. With our innovative, material-optimised packaging made of 100% recyclable corrugated board, we offer our customers precisely the sustainable products that are also increasingly preferred by end consumers.”
In line with DS Smith’s sustainability strategy ‘Now and Next’, the investment in the Arnstadt plant will also significantly reduce energy consumption as well as the paper waste generated during production. The new corrugator will save 154 tons of CO2 per year compared to the previous corrugator. In a first construction phase, an existing hall will be expanded and equipped with a latest-generation corrugator in the course of 2021. The new corrugator will have a wider working width and therefore offer better paper utilisation, higher speed and optimised performance. The second step, undertaken by Dücker, will be the automation of the internal transport of materials by two new automated conveyor systems. In addition, the plant will receive another intermediate storage facility, which is scheduled for completion by spring 2022.
