Major investments in the anniversary year: The Panther Group is investing in the Tornesch location
News General news
In the 120th anniversary year, the Panther Group is investing in its location in Tornesch. A neighboring proper-ty was purchased last month. This approx. 25,000 m2 area is developed with a high-bay warehouse, service areas and representative offices.
With this acquisition, the Altonaer Wellpappenfabrik at the Tornesch location can now be further expanded and the sales volume increased to almost 300 million square meters per year in the future. In addition, two more folder-gluers including fully automatic sorting and bundling of box bundles and high-performance palletizing robots have already been ordered in order to be able to meet the demand for e-commerce business. For this purpose, another new production building with an area of approx. 6,000 m2 is to be built in 2023. With these investments, around 45 million euros have been invested in the Panther plant in Tornesch alone in recent years in order to remain the leading corrugated board company in northern Germany.
Further investments are also being made at the other Panther plants. In addition to the extensive investments in machines/equipment and properties, the focus is on further reducing energy consumption. Due to the machinery of the entire Group, which is state-of-the-art, the specific energy consumption is already very low. However, due to the current energy crisis, investments also had to be made in security of supply. In 2022, all corrugated board plants in the Group will be able to be operated with both gas and light fuel oil. The current supply and cost situation in energy supply will also determine the market and investment behavior of the Group in the short term. The constant supply of customers always has top priority.
Another focus of investment remains education and training at Panther. Around 5 million euros are invested in apprenticeships every year. Around 130 apprentices are currently working in 16 different professions in order to be prepared for the future in terms of both quality and quantity. In addition, every employee's child/grandchild currently has a guaranteed apprenticeship position. As a family company, Panther would like to offer all employee families future opportunities.
The greatest opportunities for Panther arise from the manufactured products, since corrugated board is environmentally friendly, sustainable and recyclable and, due to the substitution of plastic and polystyrene, will certainly be in even greater demand from customers in all segments in the future.
Despite the currently very tense and challenging situation in Germany, the investments mentioned are being made first and foremost in order to continue to be a reliable, competent, agile and flexible partner at the highest level for the customers of the Panther Group and to follow the 120-year path continue to successfully develop together with the customers.
