A virtuous circle W. Hamburger

A VIRTUOUS CIRCLE

W. Hamburger is one of Europe’s most highly regarded containerboard producers with an annual capacity of around 1.6 million tonnes of paper. Industry Europe looks at the company’s activities and current production facilities.

Now one of Europe’s leading producers of high quality containerboard, W. Hamburger GmbH was first established in 1853 by Wilheim Hamburger with his purchase of a factory for rag pulp in Pitten, Germany, where one of the five mills is still located. Wilheim Hamburger was dedicated to the continued prosperity of this town, and this commitment is still reflected in the company ethos today.

W. Hamburger GmbH is currently made up of several containerboard mills, with Hamburger Pitten, Hamburger Rieger, Hamburger Spremburg, Hamburger Hungaria and its Croatian mill all sharing the well-proven company value that being ‘flexible, committed and customer-centred’ is what creates long-lasting success and value. The most recent addition to the

Market factors

As the vast majority of the containerboard manufacturing activities at W. Hamburger are from recovered paper, with around 40 per cent integrated production and 60 per cent acquired from the free market, so the cost and availability of raw materials is crucial to its

performance. In order to maintain its market leading position, W. Hamburger constantly invests in the latest technology and machinery, with a company-wide policy to only buy brand new, top quality machines that will allow the high-end production to grow as the market demands.

W. Hamburger’s facilities all contain state-of-the-art paper machines with high productivity values. With its well-respected containerboard brands including Austroliner, Riegerliner and Spreewhite and SpreeGips, W. Hamburger is keen to continually enhance its range to maximise its potential as a ‘one-stop shop’ provider for the containerboard industry. The company’s R&D department is working hard to create cost-competitive lightweight products made from recovered paper as a direct response to the market’s changing trends.

Increasing capabilities

A company spokesperson informed us, “Over the past few years we’ve made major investments in our white test liner production, with coated and uncoated containerboard available. We produce around 45,000 tonnes of white paper for printing annually. This is increasingly in demand as white containerboard offers a greater opportunity for colour printing, as you can’t print on brown containerboard and retain the same print quality. W. Hamburger white liner offers a terrific face for printing and our products are the highest quality available on the market, with excellent profitability for the company.”

Brown containerboard still represents an important market for W. Hamburger, particularly in eastern Europe, and the company has invested in an established paper mill in Hungary to capture the growth in this region.

All of the W. Hamburger paper mills and its paper machines are strictly operated under the tightest European standards, with ecological responsibility at the top of the agenda. As it deals solely in recovered paper, W. Hamburger is essentially part of a virtuous circle that collects recovered paper, brings it to the mill and reprocesses it into containerboard, so its very business is founded on a sustainable, modern principle. There are also a wide range of eco-responsible practices adopted across W. Hamburger, with power and water consumption kept to a minimum, and there is also a dedicated power station that converts up to 90 per cent of its power into energy.

As W. Hamburger looks ahead, its increasingly strong performance is giving the company the confidence to predict continued success. n