Scheufelen restars its mill in Lenningen, Germany. Thanks to a strong partnership of investors Green Growth Fund 2 / Wermuth Asset Management, Nordia Invest and Scheufelen Equity Partners, the newly established Scheufelen GmbH will initiate operations with staff of 100 on July 2nd, 2018. Scheufelen had declared insolvency end of January 2018.
“Even though production had to be stopped in April 2018, we never gave up hope or stopped our efforts to find a solution for Scheufelen to survive,” insolvency administrator Tibor Braun, Stuttgart, said.
Especially the new Scheufelen grasspaper products and the respective exclusive production know how served as motivation to explore all possibilities for the restart of Scheufelen operations.
Scheufelen started in 2017 with grasspaper, made from grass fiber and pulp, a small revolution in the German paper markets, not the least in order to try and gain some independence from the global pulp markets. Scheufelen grass paper is an especially sustainable and cost effective fresh fiber paper, with massive savings on water, chemical and energy requirements in fiber production. Compared to recycled papers, Scheufelen grasspaper avoids issues with consumer protection standards stemming from mineral oil migration from recycled paper fibers. Grass fiber also regrows quickly –different than wood fiber –and can therefore compensate CO2 emissions from its harvesting and production process almost immediately.
“Big international brands, smaller clients, but also many end consumers continued to show their huge interest in our product notwithstanding the difficult position Scheufelen found itself in over the last few months,” notes Stefan Radlmayr (CEO of Scheufelen also in the new set up). This fact encouraged the investors to believe in the first mover advantage and the extensive know-how of Scheufelen staff as a solid base for quick growth for the new company and its green product.
The insolvency administrator is glad that the continued operations maintain in a first step at least a staff of 100 in Lenningen valley and can serve as a rallying point for new job opportunities in the future.
The investor concept involves other than a strong focus on Scheufelen grass paper also the continued production of the globally respected Scheufelen premium paper products, especially the high white packaging board Phoenolux, but will not count on standard wood free graphical papers, the main reason for the insolvency. Development of Scheufelen products will continue to be supported by Packaging Campus Lenningen in cooperation with Hochschule der Medien, Stuttgart and other partners. The innovative Packaging Campus can now strengthen its activities and further research and development institutes covering the areas of resource efficiency and alternative fibers are expected to follow soon.
Scheufelen is a producer of coated wood free papers for premium and commodity graphical applications, a market facing dramatic overcapacities and margin pressures.
