SALES UP FOUR PERCENT YEAR-ON-YEAR
The protective packaging specialist Storopack finished the year 2016 with its sales up. The Metzingen-based group generated sales totaling 434 million euros last year with its 2,513 employees. This equates to a year-on-year increase of 18 million euros and growth of four percent, adjusted from five percent for exchange rate effects. In its two Divisions Molding and Packaging, Storopack develops flexible and customized protective packaging solutions, packing line and workstation concepts, and technical molded parts for various industries.
“We’re very happy with how business developed last year, when we continued on our growth trajectory,” says Hermann Reichenecker, managing partner of Storopack. “More goods were packed and shipped overall in the industrialized countries in particular, and this had a positive impact on our business performance. In fact, we are currently growing more quickly than the market.” Broken down by regions, around 85 percent of total sales turnover were generated jointly by Europe and North America. The largest increases in sales were recorded in North and South America last year, with sales growing by 8.5 and 8.8 percent respectively.
New Location in Australia
At the beginning of 2016, Storopack acquired 100 percent of the shares in its long-standing Australian sales partner Intellipack Asia Pacific Pty Ltd. (Intellipack) in Seven Hills near Sydney, thereby opening its first facility in Oceania. Prior to this, Intellipack, which now operates under the name Storopack Australia Pty Ltd., successfully marketed Storopack’s AIRplus® and PAPERplus® product lines in Australia and New Zealand, and developed integrated packing systems. “This acquisition was an important step for us as it expanded our presence in Asia-Pacific and means we are now even closer to our customers in the region. Making ourselves available locally as an expert point of contact is part and parcel of how we see ourselves,” says Hermann Reichenecker. Storopack currently has 64 locations in 18 countries.
Focus on the Customers’ Needs
In the current fiscal year too, Storopack is adhering to the principles that made its growth to date possible. “The key to our success lies first and foremost in our systematically adapting to our customers’ needs,” says Hermann Reichenecker. “Whether it’s with new products like our AIRplus® Wrap or the development of packaging lines and packing station concepts, in our Packaging division we focus at all times on our customers’ entire protective packaging processes, to continually improve their productivity. In the Molding Division, we began to specialize in our customers’ areas of industry back in 2015 so as to offer them even better support based on sound industry expertise. We will continue on this path.”