kaging and film specialist Bischof + Klein is anticipating sales growth of around 5 percent, enabling it to crack the 500-million-euro mark. Managing director Dr. Volker Pfennig: "The good first six months of 2014 have caused us to become optimistic."With its headquarters located in Westphalia's Lengerich, the B+K-GROUP manufactures at six production plants in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Poland and Saudi Arabia, and has a worldwide network of sales offices. Its product portfolio encompasses the entire range of flexible industrial packaging and consumer packaging as well as technical films.
With a volume of around 30 million euros, the investment programme is continuing the company's consistent modernisation and extension of its production plants' capacity. Over the coming years, expansion of the very productive plant in Bavaria's Konzell is on the agenda, amongst other aspects. Focus here is on hygiene packaging products. Located in the Polish town of Walce, B+K Polska is extending its extrusion capacities and is aiming to achieve 50 percent production growth in the medium term. "Sustainability projects, e.g. for reducing the use of resources and consistently increasing productivity, are of particular importance to us", explained Dr. Pfennig.
In 2013, the B+K-GROUP achieved annual sales of just under 500 million euros with around 2,350 employees, some 1,900 of which are located in Germany. Last year, the investment programme focused e.g. on expanding extrusion and printing capacities as well as on energy efficiency measures at the German plants. The subsidiary companies also performed positively. B+K UK increased its flexographic printing production and was running at full capacity in 4-shift operation at the end of the year. A modern 8-colour flexographic printing press, aimed at achieving growth in new markets, came on-line at B+K France. With a new extrusion building, B+K Polska created the prerequisites for further expansion of the plant. The multi-year contract with a major customer landed by the B+K Middle East Comp. participation (30%) and enormous market growth in the region are ensuring full utilisation of production capacity, which has now increased to more than 30,000 tonnes per year in Saudi Arabia, and are offering an adequate basis for further expansion.
In 2013, the family-owned company was able to expand its position as a leading full-service supplier of flexible plastic and plastic laminate packaging and technical films, and benefited to an above-average extent from this market growth. However, extreme pressure on margins, rising energy costs and the additional expenses caused by the German Renewable Energies Act (EEG) were major burdens. "The EEG reform is long overdue to improve German industrial competitiveness again", emphasised B+K's managing director.
