Ontex announced that manufacturing at its plant in Mayen, Germany, will be gradually phased out by mid-2022. Mayen will become an excellence center for Global Process Engineering, Global Product Technology and Market Adaptation Baby Care, and thereby will be instrumental to bring innovations faster to our consumers.

To return to profitable growth, Ontex is conducting a worldwide business review, including a focus on the most efficient use of production assets. Production in Mayen is being wound down due to the impacts of legacy contract losses and softer market trends on revenue.

Despite the improvements achieved under other efficiency actions in recent years, these efforts were not enough to compensate the drop of volume and achieve competitiveness.
Ontex expects an impact of around 350 full-time equivalent jobs on a total of around 500. The company will work to redeploy employees where possible and will continue to engage with its social partners in Mayen to find the best solution feasible for all affected.

“Choices needed to be made, and as Mayen’s production capacity was not fully utilized, we have decided that Mayen’s role in the group will be to focus on Global Process Engineering and Global Platform Innovation for the Ontex Group, and be one of the driving locations to bring innovation even faster to the market,” says Markus van Gumpel, vice president, Manufacturing Europe, Ontex.

The Global Excellence Center will be operational as of January 2022.