The Schumacher Packaging Group is planning the biggest ever investment campaign in the company’s history, which stretches back to 1948. Between now and 2025, around €700m will be invested – €300m of which will be invested in Germany alone. While investment in the packaging industry, and in medium-sized companies in general, is currently low, the company is taking an unusual direction: Despite the challenging economic conditions on the global markets, the company is investing in the creation and expansion of corrugated board plants and paper factories, as well as in sustainable future technologies, laying the foundations for the future. With its investment package, the company also aims to create some 500 new jobs by 2025, with more than half being in German production facilities.
The goal of the investment is to be able to meet the growing demand for made-to-measure packaging solutions, spurred by the e-commerce boom, both in the long and short term and to further increase the company’s competitive edge. For 2021, Schumacher Packaging Group is forecasting sales of around €800m – by 2025, a significant growth to €1.3 bn is anticipated.
“Owing to the difficult market conditions, the industry is on the whole shying away from investment. Moreover, the industry is facing the challenge of not being able to supply their customers with enough packaging. We want to offer our customers short-term supply reliability and to be well-positioned in the coming years. That’s why, despite the current economic challenges, we are making more investments than ever before,” says Björn Schumacher, CEO of the Schumacher Packaging Group.
More than half of the planned investments (approximately €400m) will be directed towards the expansion of existing plants. The corrugated board plant in Greven, close to Münster-Osnabrück airport, will be expanded to become a next-generation mega-facility even sooner than originally planned. By 2022, it will be one of the world’s largest production sites, and with an annual capacity of 600 million sqm will succeed the Ebersdorf headquarters as one of Europe’s largest corrugated board plants. The planned expansion of the paper capacities will also be brought forward to 2022/2023. Around €300m of the investment capital will be put into brand new plants.
Part of the modernisation campaign includes investments in sustainable technologies for the future. The packaging specialist is planning to build several ultra-modern energy parks in Poland and Germany, comprising wind farms and solar farms offering a total output of ten megawatts in the short term, expanding to up to 40 megawatts in the medium term. All the company’s German plants, as well as the plants in Wrocław, Poland, and in Breda, Netherlands, have already been certified as sustainable by EcoVadis.
The main reason for the booming demand in the packaging industry is the growth in online retail.
