This iron lady is called “Elisabeth I” and can be found in Falkenhagen. She is the first production line for airlaid cellulose fibre in Brandenburg and the new benchmark in quality she set caused a sensation on the world-wide market for personal hygiene articles. Because the airlaid cellulose fibre of the firm Concert in Falkenhagen was stronger, more pliant and much more absorbent than all other conventional products from the competition. An auspicious start to a success story which began in 1996 with one man and his brainwave – but with no customers and not a cent in sight.
Born in Westphalia, Rolf Hövelmann was the man behind the decision of the Canadian Concert Group to locate in Brandenburg and the driving force behind the company’s astonishingly quick rise in fortunes. The entrepreneur has a very high opinion of the north-western part of Brandenburg and its people:
“The motorway connections and the rest of the infrastructure are ideal, the people are highly motivated, and the local authorities dealt with necessary paperwork quickly and unbureaucratically.”
Hövelmann has good reason to be satisfied – in just seven years his one-man show has turned into a flourishing medium-sized enterprise with a payroll of over 200 employees and an annual turnover of Euro 50 million. The company has been awarded an “Oskar for medium-sized enterprises”.
The number of uses to which the airlaid cellulose “made in Brandenburg” can be put is almost limitless. Since 1996 the Falkenhagen plant has been producing both thermal and latex-bonded airlaid for personal hygiene articles, baby wipes, cosmetic wipes, tabletop articles, food pads and filtration products. The latest addition to their product range is a hybrid-bonded extra-absorbent pad ideal for packaging meat.
World-wide demand for Brandenburg best airlaid is so high that in 2000 a second production line was commissioned. The “Red Eagle” is now the biggest production line of its kind anywhere in the world. These days production at the Falkenhagen plant runs non-stop day and night 365 days a year. The annual turnout of 28.000 tonnes gives Concert a market share of 26.5 percent and makes it Europe’s market leader.
Concert owes its present good fortunes in no small measure to a powerful programme of business investment. Grants from the state of Brandenburg were supplemented with a professional qualification measure for 35 employees from the Employment Office and a grant of Euro 400.000 from the European Social Fund while Concert also received Euro 4 million in funding from the ERDF.
Rolf Hövelmann,
Concert GmbH
