German personal care wipe maker Dr. Schumacher GmbH has established a new production facility in Luban, in southwest Poland. The plant, developed under a PLN150 million (€35 million) investment is 50,000 square meters and houses 45 production lines. The new plant was completed four years after the German manufacturer’s previous Luban  factory was destroyed in a fire.

The location of this facility in the country’s Kamiennogorska special economic zone (KSSE), in Poland’s southwestern region of Lower Silesia, will make Dr. Schumacher eligible for preferential tax treatment for its investment.

“Dr. Schumacher is a world-renowned brand. The standards and technologies used in this project reflect the latest global trends,” says Iwona Krawczyk, the chief executive of the special economic zone.

According to Krawczyk, the new factory makes Dr. Schumacher the largest investor in Luban.

Poland’s special economic zones are to remain operational until the end of 2026, according to a decision made by the Polish government in 2013. In return for preferential tax treatment for their manufacturing projects, companies that establish production facilities in these zones are required to maintain the plants’ target workforce at a level agreed upon with local authorities.

The new factory is currently operated by a workforce of 660, and company representatives told local news site Eluban.pl that they aim to create an additional 90 jobs in Luban.

Dierk Schumacher, the German company’s co-owner who was also present at the official opening ceremony last February, said that the plant represents the largest investment in the company’s history.

“We see ourselves as a leader in quality. Accordingly with this future-oriented stance, we have invested in a machine park which has no equal,” Schumacher says. “As a family-run business, we know from the beginning that we will finance a new facility.”
Increased Output Capacity in Poland

What is noteworthy, the new plant was opened on the site where a wipe plant burned down in July 2012. The facility, established by the company’s local subsidiary Dr. Schumacher sp. z o.o., was operated by a workforce of about 411 employees at the time of the accident. Today, the rebuilt plant allows the manufacturer to expand both its workforce and output capacities, as the factory’s 45 production lines are able to produce 100 million packs of wipes per year.

According to estimates by Dr. Schumacher, compared to the company’s previous production facility in Luban, the new factory will allow the manufacturer to achieve a five-fold increase in output.

Dr. Schumacher says it is one of Europe’s leading companies specialized in the development and production of disinfectants, hygiene and personal care products, as well as wet wipes for baby care, cosmetics, personal hygiene and other household products. The German firm makes about 200 million packs, fitted with some 10 billion ready-to-use wipes, per year. This means that the Polish plant will represent as much as 50% of its aggregate annual output. Moreover, the firm’s production capacities comprise some 5,700 tons of disinfectants per year, according to data released by Dr. Schumacher.

The German manufacturer says that its production facilities are enabled to produce products with all nonwoven materials offered in the baby care area, up to 55 gsm or higher.

Dr. Schumacher claims it is aiming to ensure a high degree of flexibility in the packaging formats. Its output ranges from flowpacks fitted in sizes ranging 15-80 wipes in the usual sizes to multipacks, travel sizes and mini pocket formats, depending on the customers’ needs.

Among other retail channels, the firm’s product portfolio is distributed through Germany’s drugstore chain Rossman which also operates a major retail network in the Polish market. In addition to Germany and Poland, the chain owns retail outlets in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey and Albania which provides Dr. Schumacher with further possibilities of foreign expansion.

Set up by Dr. Henning Schumacher, the company is currently managed by its founder’s two sons, Jens and Dierk Schumacher, who currently both serve as the firm’s authorized managing directors.

All of Dr. Schumacher’s production facilities are ISO 9001, 13845 and 14001, as well as GMP, QAKE and EU-Öko-Audit certified.
Luban is located about 316 km from the country’s capital Warsaw.

Poland Eyes Positive Economic Outlook
The latest investment by Dr. Schumacher indicates that foreign industry players are motivated to expand manufacturing activities in the Polish market, attracted by the country’s location between Western and Eastern EU member states, as well as by its well-skilled and relatively inexpensive workforce.

According to the latest available figures from the Polish Minister of Family, Labor and Social Policy, Poland’s registered unemployment level stood at about 10.3% of the country’s total active workforce in February 2016. While this is less than the 11.9% posted in the same month a year earlier, Poland’s level of unemployment still allows local manufacturers to recruit workers for their production activities in a relatively short timeframe.

Over the past years, Poland has been attracting an increasing number of investments by foreign companies. The economic downturn in the Eurozone has not exerted a major impact on the country’s economy, as Poland was the only EU member state to report a positive gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2009, when it rose by 2.6% compared with a year earlier, according to figures from the World Bank. In 2015, the Polish GDP posted an increase of 3.5% year-on-year.

Moreover, should the World Bank’s positive outlook for the country’s economy be confirmed in the forthcoming years, Poland is looking ahead at least two years of consecutive economic growth.

In 2017, the country’s economy could expand by as much as 3.7% compared to this year, and in 2018, Poland could see its economy rise another 3.9%, as indicated by data released by the bank. This would place the Polish economy among both the region’s and the EU’s most rapidly expanding ones, as neighboring Lithuania and the Czech Republic are expected to post lower GDP growths for this year and increase the country’s attractiveness to potential foreign investors.