07.19.23
Sonnenstraße 1
85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten
Germany
Phone: +49 89 9003 0
www.hubergroup.com
Sales: $860 million (€813 million)
Major Products: hubergroup is an international printing inks and chemicals specialist. Within its two divisions, the company develops innovative, sustainable products and services to enable its customers first-class results
.
The Print Solutions Division produces inks, varnishes, fountain solution additives, and printing aids for food and non-food packaging, commercial and newspaper printing. Main products include UV, water- and solvent-based flexo inks and varnishes, solvent-based gravure inks, conventional and UV sheet-fed offset inks and varnishes, coldset as well as heatset web offset inks, screen inks, and fountain solution additives.
The Chemicals Division produces speciality chemicals such as resins, lamination adhesives, additives and colorants in its facilities in India. In particular, hubergroup Chemicals concentrates on the customized manufacturing and development of radiation curing UV oligomers, polyurethane resins, polyketonic resins, adhesion promoters, modified rosin, laminating adhesives (2K PU systems), and pigment concentrates as well as alkali blue.
Key Personnel: Heiner Klokkers, CEO and president Americas; Britta Hübner, CFO and chief transformation officer; Taner Bicer, president Chemicals Division; Suresh Kalra, president Asia; Dr. Dirk Aulbert, president Division Flexo/Gravure and president South & East Europe; Carsten Zölzer, president Division Offset and president Central & West Europe.
Number of Employees: 3,300 worldwide.
Comments: Despite the challenging environment, hubergroup had a good year in 2022. While the economy faced hurdles in terms of raw materials, transportation costs and some declines in the print market, sustainability is a key opportunity, especially for hubergroup.
“In my opinion, there were two dominant topics in 2022: The market situation and sustainability,” hubergroup CEO Heiner Klokkers observed. “The market situation in the printing inks market remained very tense in 2022. The costs of raw materials, freight and energy remained at a high level while the volume decreased. Accordingly, it was also a challenging year for hubergroup Print Solutions.
“In view of this difficult situation, we are satisfied with our performance,” he added. “The market has continued to move towards sustainable packaging, and we can see growth in mono-material packaging. Thanks to our sustainable portfolio, we were therefore able to stabilize our position.”
The decision to branch out its raw material operations into hubergroup Chemicals Division in 2020 has proved to have been a wise one.
“Our Chemicals Division, which was launched in 2020, successfully established itself on the international market and has gained many international and regional customers in the chemical, coatings and printing ink industries in 2022,” Klokkers said.
Klokkers noted that Asia has been a strong region for hubergroup, particularly India.
“Asia, in particular India, is the market with the strongest growth in all business segments,” Klokkers said. “In 2022, hubergroup was also able to achieve good growth in North America, especially in the folding carton market with our sheetfed and UV offset portfolio. In Europe, we saw a strong shift in converting from Central Europe to Turkey.”
hubergroup had plenty of highlights to report for 2022, beginning with the emphasis on continuously working on improving its portfolio to make printing processes and products more efficient and ecological, beginning with its UV range.
“We place particular emphasis on providing customers with a holistic portfolio whenever possible and on always supporting them with our customer service during the realization of their projects,” Klokkers reported. “Within the last year, we had a special focus on our UV portfolio. As a consequence, we are relaunching our UV flexo portfolio under the brand iray, which now convinces with an even better performance. Additionally, we added primers, adhesives and low-migration printing inks as well as varnishes for food packaging to the portfolio to cover all products necessary for UV flexo printers.
“Similarly, we revised and strengthened our UV offset portfolio for non-absorbent substrates,” he added. “The portfolio includes printing inks, varnishes, and fountain solution additives that are optimally matched to each other and thus enable a smooth printing process. Thanks to intensive development work, the globally available food and non-food ink series NewV poly (MGA) and NewV tin (MGA) as well as the varnish series NewV lac (MGA) are now also formulated to be sensorially neutral and PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene)-free.”
hubergroup also introduced new web offset inks for food packaging.
“With paper packaging becoming increasingly popular in the food sector due to its good recyclability, our mineral oil-free and low-migration ink series MGA FOOD NEWS and MGA EVOLUTION offer a new opportunity,” Klokkers said. “While web offset printers can build up another business segment, the food industry has a new option to design sustainable paper packaging in a colorful and creative way.”
The hubergroup Chemicals Division is also growing, with new facilities being added on the UV side.
“With regards to our chemical business, we are delighted to share that we have implemented two new facilities at our production site in Vapi, India: Our new monomers and oligomers manufacturing facility increases our manufacturing capacity to 4500 MT/A for UV monomers and oligomers,” Klokkers reported. “Our new UV oligomers facility will play a crucial role in expanding our production capabilities by 800 MT per year.”
The company also implemented a number of sustainability initiatives which cover the gamut from improving energy development to providing health care in rural communities in India.
“Last but not least, we made some advancements in the areas of sustainability and corporate social responsibility, which are very important to me,” Klokkers said. “For example, we implemented a trigeneration plant for more eco-friendly production at our site in Bolzano Vicentino, Italy, we launched and expanded a rural healthcare initiative in India, and hubergroup Deutschland was awarded with the EcoVadis silver medal. We also have a number of projects planned for the future to further improve our environmental footprint and support the communities in which we operate.”
Klokkers said that the emphasis on sustainability will continue to serve hubergroup well in 2023.
“The decreasing printing market and the high costs for raw materials, energy, and transport will continue to be a major challenge this year. Nevertheless, we can and want to actively drive an eco-friendly printing world. That’s why we will continue to focus on designing our products and processes even more sustainably,” Klokkers concluded.
85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten
Germany
Phone: +49 89 9003 0
www.hubergroup.com
Sales: $860 million (€813 million)
Major Products: hubergroup is an international printing inks and chemicals specialist. Within its two divisions, the company develops innovative, sustainable products and services to enable its customers first-class results
.
The Print Solutions Division produces inks, varnishes, fountain solution additives, and printing aids for food and non-food packaging, commercial and newspaper printing. Main products include UV, water- and solvent-based flexo inks and varnishes, solvent-based gravure inks, conventional and UV sheet-fed offset inks and varnishes, coldset as well as heatset web offset inks, screen inks, and fountain solution additives.
The Chemicals Division produces speciality chemicals such as resins, lamination adhesives, additives and colorants in its facilities in India. In particular, hubergroup Chemicals concentrates on the customized manufacturing and development of radiation curing UV oligomers, polyurethane resins, polyketonic resins, adhesion promoters, modified rosin, laminating adhesives (2K PU systems), and pigment concentrates as well as alkali blue.
Key Personnel: Heiner Klokkers, CEO and president Americas; Britta Hübner, CFO and chief transformation officer; Taner Bicer, president Chemicals Division; Suresh Kalra, president Asia; Dr. Dirk Aulbert, president Division Flexo/Gravure and president South & East Europe; Carsten Zölzer, president Division Offset and president Central & West Europe.
Number of Employees: 3,300 worldwide.
Comments: Despite the challenging environment, hubergroup had a good year in 2022. While the economy faced hurdles in terms of raw materials, transportation costs and some declines in the print market, sustainability is a key opportunity, especially for hubergroup.
“In my opinion, there were two dominant topics in 2022: The market situation and sustainability,” hubergroup CEO Heiner Klokkers observed. “The market situation in the printing inks market remained very tense in 2022. The costs of raw materials, freight and energy remained at a high level while the volume decreased. Accordingly, it was also a challenging year for hubergroup Print Solutions.
“In view of this difficult situation, we are satisfied with our performance,” he added. “The market has continued to move towards sustainable packaging, and we can see growth in mono-material packaging. Thanks to our sustainable portfolio, we were therefore able to stabilize our position.”
The decision to branch out its raw material operations into hubergroup Chemicals Division in 2020 has proved to have been a wise one.
“Our Chemicals Division, which was launched in 2020, successfully established itself on the international market and has gained many international and regional customers in the chemical, coatings and printing ink industries in 2022,” Klokkers said.
Klokkers noted that Asia has been a strong region for hubergroup, particularly India.
“Asia, in particular India, is the market with the strongest growth in all business segments,” Klokkers said. “In 2022, hubergroup was also able to achieve good growth in North America, especially in the folding carton market with our sheetfed and UV offset portfolio. In Europe, we saw a strong shift in converting from Central Europe to Turkey.”
hubergroup had plenty of highlights to report for 2022, beginning with the emphasis on continuously working on improving its portfolio to make printing processes and products more efficient and ecological, beginning with its UV range.
“We place particular emphasis on providing customers with a holistic portfolio whenever possible and on always supporting them with our customer service during the realization of their projects,” Klokkers reported. “Within the last year, we had a special focus on our UV portfolio. As a consequence, we are relaunching our UV flexo portfolio under the brand iray, which now convinces with an even better performance. Additionally, we added primers, adhesives and low-migration printing inks as well as varnishes for food packaging to the portfolio to cover all products necessary for UV flexo printers.
“Similarly, we revised and strengthened our UV offset portfolio for non-absorbent substrates,” he added. “The portfolio includes printing inks, varnishes, and fountain solution additives that are optimally matched to each other and thus enable a smooth printing process. Thanks to intensive development work, the globally available food and non-food ink series NewV poly (MGA) and NewV tin (MGA) as well as the varnish series NewV lac (MGA) are now also formulated to be sensorially neutral and PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene)-free.”
hubergroup also introduced new web offset inks for food packaging.
“With paper packaging becoming increasingly popular in the food sector due to its good recyclability, our mineral oil-free and low-migration ink series MGA FOOD NEWS and MGA EVOLUTION offer a new opportunity,” Klokkers said. “While web offset printers can build up another business segment, the food industry has a new option to design sustainable paper packaging in a colorful and creative way.”
The hubergroup Chemicals Division is also growing, with new facilities being added on the UV side.
“With regards to our chemical business, we are delighted to share that we have implemented two new facilities at our production site in Vapi, India: Our new monomers and oligomers manufacturing facility increases our manufacturing capacity to 4500 MT/A for UV monomers and oligomers,” Klokkers reported. “Our new UV oligomers facility will play a crucial role in expanding our production capabilities by 800 MT per year.”
The company also implemented a number of sustainability initiatives which cover the gamut from improving energy development to providing health care in rural communities in India.
“Last but not least, we made some advancements in the areas of sustainability and corporate social responsibility, which are very important to me,” Klokkers said. “For example, we implemented a trigeneration plant for more eco-friendly production at our site in Bolzano Vicentino, Italy, we launched and expanded a rural healthcare initiative in India, and hubergroup Deutschland was awarded with the EcoVadis silver medal. We also have a number of projects planned for the future to further improve our environmental footprint and support the communities in which we operate.”
Klokkers said that the emphasis on sustainability will continue to serve hubergroup well in 2023.
“The decreasing printing market and the high costs for raw materials, energy, and transport will continue to be a major challenge this year. Nevertheless, we can and want to actively drive an eco-friendly printing world. That’s why we will continue to focus on designing our products and processes even more sustainably,” Klokkers concluded.
