Richard Higgs
EUROPEAN PLASTICS NEWS
Published: August 22, 2014 9:54 am ET
Updated: August 22, 2014 9:57 am ET
Image By: Promens hf
Promens hf will consolidate blow molding in Germany, closing two plants in the process.
Promens hf, the Icelandic packaging group, is planning to restructure its packaging operations in Germany with the closure of two blow molding plants next year.
The group’s German subsidiary announced it intends to shut down its Unterrieden bottle blow molding facility at Witzenhausen in the Hesse region in June 2015, according to the regional newspaper HNA.
Production will move to Promens packaging plant in Neumünster in Schleswig-Holstein and all 35 Unterrieden plant employees are set to be offered jobs there, the paper quoted Promens packaging chief executive Jan-Frederik Schneider as stating.
The closure was blamed on “poor economic development” of Unterrieden plant and an inability to invest further at the site which is located in a residential district, explained the executive.
Talks with the works council at the facility were due this month to establish a social plan for its employees.
The Kópavogur, Iceland-based group later announced it plans a further closure. Its blow molded canister production facility in Winsen, Lower Saxony will stop production by March next year. Alternative jobs will be offered to its redundant workers also at Promens’s Neumünster operation, according to a statement by Schneider.
Among reasons given for that shut down were rising hygiene requirements demanded by the market and a lack of opportunities to expand this site, according to German media reports quoting Promens.
Promens Witzenhausen, which began blow molding in 1961, makes a range of mainly polyethylene round and rectangular bottles from 5 milliliters to 2 liters. It has a silk-screen printing and labeling section and specializes in polypropylene bottles with high transparency and strength. The Winsen plant opened in 1975. | 
