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XtraBlatt Issue 02-2021

  • Text
  • Krone
  • Egger
  • Farmers
  • Dairy
  • Maize
  • Timber
  • Harvest
  • Cows
  • Agricultural
  • Bales
  • Xtrablatt

TITLE THEME STORY EGGER

TITLE THEME STORY EGGER HOLZWERKSTOFFE BARKING UP 2 1 Egger turns fresh logs and recycled products into particleboard. 2 The origins of its logs have to be completely traceable. THE RIGHT TREE It goes without saying that timber is the main raw material used to make particleboard. And forests are important to many farmers' businesses, too. So, XtraBlatt took a look around at Egger Holzwerkstoffe and came away having learned a lot about timber and the marketplace 1 B XtraBlatt? Well, its proprietor Fritz Egger is a farmer, ut why are we profiling Egger of all companies in too. He runs a dairy farm that also finishes bullocks in St. Johann in Tyrol, Austria. Xtrablatt has covered the farm in the past. In this issue, though, we are casting the spotlight on the company's wood-based panel business, Egger Holzwerkstoffe. Egger remains a family business to this day. It is owned by two brothers, Michael and Fritz Egger, who help define the company’s strategic direction. Egger’s group management team is now in charge of day-to-day operations. The group generated sales in excess of €3bn in the 2020/2021 financial year – an 8.9% growth compared with 2019/2020. Its workforce is on the increase, too: some 10,400 people worked for the company at the end of April 2021. Egger runs 20 production facilities in Austria, Germany, the UK, France, Russia, Romania, Turkey, Argentina, Poland and the US. Its Austrian mills can be found in St. Johann, Wörgl and Unterradlberg; the company also has sites in the German towns of Brilon, Bevern, Gifhorn, Bünde, Marienmünster and Wismar. Altogether, the group made 9.6 million m 3 of wood-based panels, including lumber, in the past financial year. By way of comparison, this figure had stood at 8.9 million m 3 in 2019/2020. FULLY INTEGRATED Egger’s largest German mill is in Brilon, located in the western region of Hochsauerland. This site was built from scratch in 1990. Today, roughly 1,250 people work there. Brilon is the Egger Group’s first fully integrated location and unlocks countless synergies. That is to say, all of its manufacturing processes operate in a closed loop, from logs to finished products. The sawlogs are turned into lumber products and the sawmilling residues generated are used to make wood-based sheets. What’s more, Egger reuses any leftover materials that cannot be recycled, for instance, to generate electricity at its own biomass-fired power plant. The main materials used by Egger are: timber (89% by quantity), paper (1%) and chemicals (10%). Each year, the company sources around 12 million tonnes. The timber is used to make chips, fibres and strands – the main elements used in board production. Its mills need chemical feedstocks for the adhesive it uses to bind raw board and to manufacture resin for decorative surfaces. Raw and decor paper are also required to make coating materials. More than 3,000 partner entities supply the group with timber. Egger mainly procures three types of timber: logs, sawmilling residues and waste wood. The group sources logs from around 1,400 suppliers at the moment. 14 15