Klasmann-Deilmann is building Germany's most modern substrate factory. In close cooperation with Schulte & Bruns, high-performance production facilities will be installed in the port of Papenburg from 2025. As early as 2026, peat, wood fibre, green compost and other raw materials are to be processed here into growing media for commercial horticulture.
Founded in 1913, the Klasmann-Deilmann Group is a company in the substrate industry. Growing media are of systemic importance: A good 50% of the products are used by the food industry for growing vegetables, lettuce, soft fruit, herbs and edible mushrooms. In addition, the nursery and ornamental plant sectors remain major customers. "Germany continues to be our most important sales market," says Moritz Böcking, Managing Director of Klasmann-Deilmann. "We want to supply our customers with high-quality growing media in the long term. That is why the investment in a modern factory in Papenburg is also an investment in the future of German commercial horticulture. We want to send a strong signal with this now, in the corona pandemic."
Innovative substrates
In the future, the raw materials required will come from all over Europe. The company has peat resources that are harvested in Germany and the Baltic States in accordance with the RPP standards. It also has several wood fibre and composting plants in Germany and the Netherlands, as well as international supply contracts for coir, perlite, clay, bark and fertilizer. "In Papenburg, we will produce high-quality substrate mixtures that meet the criteria of sustainability and the high quality requirements of our customers," confirms Moritz Böcking. "The Port of Papenburg offers the optimum conditions for this, because we can bring together flows of goods from different regions centrally here. Papenburg will not only be home to the most modern factory, it will also produce the most innovative substrates. With Schulte & Bruns, we have a strong partner at our side who is firmly anchored in the industry and with whom we have already enjoyed a long collaboration."
Bengt Fischer, Managing Director of shipping and logistics company Schulte & Bruns, founded in Papenburg in 1882, says in this context: "The cooperation between our two companies ensures high handling volumes for the Port of Papenburg and basic employment for our fleet in the long term. We are grateful that the city of Papenburg, with the help of the state of Lower Saxony and the district of Emsland, is completing the new lock, which will make the Port of Papenburg fit for the future and competitive and thus make our joint, innovative project possible in the first place."
Further expansion
Klasmann-Deilmann's substrate factories in central Emsland and on the so-called Küstenkanal (coast canal) will continue to operate in the coming years. "Our local resources of peat are sufficient to be able to produce at several locations," explains Moritz Böcking. "At the same time, it is foreseeable that the time of peat extraction in Germany is coming to an end. We are thinking in the long term and are already creating real prospects for our company, for our employees and, above all, for our customers. Papenburg offers the optimum infrastructure for this." With the new factory, Klasmann-Deilmann is building on a successful model in the port of Rotterdam, where the company has been processing raw materials and producing growing media for more than three decades. "We are constantly expanding the site in the Netherlands," says Moritz Böcking, "only recently we invested over ten million euros there. We would like to start a comparable success story in Papenburg."
For more information:
Klasmann-Deilmann
www.klasmann-deilmann.com