The Schumacher Packaging Group is continuing on its growth path with a strategic investment. A complete paper factory has been taken over in Myszków in Poland; Schumacher has confirmed that it is investing €100 million in the project.
The takeover negotiations lasted almost two years due to complicated legal relationships and have now been completed. An important intermediate step was taken in March 2016 with the purchase of the paper machine. Overall, the Schumacher Packaging Group now owns a new production facility with a site covering an area in excess of 28 hectares, its own power plant and its own sewage treatment plant. Managing Director, Björn Schumacher, says, “Environmental protection and cost-efficiency ideally complement one another here. The River Warta flows through our site. We can use the water for production and also return it to the river after treatment.” The steam produced during paper manufacturing is used to generate electricity for the factory.
To date, newsprint was being produced on the 5.36m machine. Following the conversion to run corrugated papers, around 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes of high-quality Testliner and fluting will be produced annually in Myszków. In the next two to three years, around 30 employees will ensure that the infrastructure and the buildings are repaired in accordance with the Quality Guidelines of the Schumacher Packaging Group and that the machine is prepared for conversion. Production is scheduled to start in 2019 when around 130 employees will manufacture corrugated paper with an annual value of €100 million.
Good transport connections are extremely important in this respect. “Especially during the imminent upgrading phase, we will benefit a great deal from an airfield in the immediate vicinity. In the following years, however, fast accessibility will also be very important for a company like ours which operates all over Europe,” said Mr Schumacher. The industrial town of Myszków is also ideally connected to the whole of Europe through two motorways in a north-south and an east-west direction. The plant close to Katowice is strategically well-positioned in regard to the company’s two Polish factories in Bydgoszcz and Wroclaw.
