Cardboard is booming thanks to online and mail order business

According to the German Economic Institute (IW), online sales in Germany have grown by about half in the past two years and are expected to reach almost 119 billion euros in 2021. Accordingly, online business now accounts for more than 18 percent of retail. Overall, the pandemic has caused an estimated additional turnover in online business of a good 36 billion euros since 2020.

However, the first time in the pandemic was characterized by uncertainty, according to the managing director. “We didn’t know what changes we were going to face,” says Schumacher. The structure in the area of ​​e-commerce was not yet well developed in 2020, but there was a very strong increase in online trade, especially in the first few months of the lockdown.

demand remains

“Although demand calmed down again slightly in the summer of 2020, with the longer-lasting lockdown light in autumn of that year it became clear at the latest that this boom will be sustainable,” says Schumacher. With the help of the investments, the plant in Greven near Münster is now to replace the main plant in Ebersdorf near Coburg as the largest corrugated board plant to date in Europe.

The family business was founded in 1948 by Kurt H. Schumacher, Björn Schumacher’s grandfather. Born in East Prussia, he fled to Bavaria at the end of the Second World War. Originally wealthy, the family lost everything they owned when they fled.

Kurt H. Schumacher founded a trading company with his wife. In the 1950s, his father Wulf Schumacher joined and took over the management. A short time later, the packaging company, the Schumacher Packaging Group, was set up near Nuremberg.

In the mid-1990s, the current managing director, Björn Schumacher, joined the company after studying business administration. With his brother, Henrik Schumacher, he took over the management from his father in 2010.

Schumacher explains that the Schumacher Packaging Group, as a medium-sized company, can now compete with large corporations on an international level, primarily with the extensive customer dialogue. “Customers felt they were in better hands than with large companies,” says the company boss. “During the discussions, it became clear that the customers liked the company’s quick and dynamic response to customer requests, but above all to changes in the market.”

International competition

The starting signal for international development was given at the end of the 1990s with the first plant in Poland. After that, two locations were added to the group each year. In order to be able to keep up internationally in the long term, challenges must be recognized early and responded to, says Schumacher. “Not having blinkers, giving the company the opportunity to develop and reinvent itself again and again: these principles shape the company and also me as a person,” says Schuhmacher.

The company employs 3,500 people and has production sites in Bielefeld, Forchheim, Hauenstein, Schwarzenberg and Sonneberg. Other plants are in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and England. The new investments should also create 500 new jobs.

Björn Schumacher does not expect the trend towards online trading to flatten out after the corona pandemic – in fact the opposite is the case: If the situation in the city centers returns to normal, a decline in online shopping is not to be expected. “We’ve been in business with the big online retailers for more than 20 years,” says Schumacher. “When you see what is planned there, you can see that the growth rates that have been constant over the past few years can definitely be interpreted as sustainable in the future,” says Schumacher.

However, the return to retail is no longer as easy as it used to be. “And I see that, quite apart from the business, with a tear in my eye,” says the managing director. In Germany in particular, the inner cities should worry about moving consumers back into the cities.

“The usual 0815 sale will not succeed,” says Schumacher. “E-commerce is simply faster, more convenient and more comfortable there.” Schumacher sees the associated declining attractiveness of inner cities as a major challenge.

CO2 neutral by 2035

In addition, other markets can already be observed on an international level. “In Great Britain, consumption via online trade is already twice as high as is the case in Germany. Areas were developed there that are still being discovered in Germany,” says Schuhmacher. This includes, for example, the sale of groceries.

But the environment is also forcing the company to make changes: the Schumacher Packaging Group wants to produce its cardboard CO2-neutrally by 2035. “Our product already has a lot of potential here with a renewable raw material,” says Schumacher. In addition, the company has a comparatively high recycling rate in the corrugated cardboard sector: According to Schumacher, almost 100 percent of the packaging is recycled.

But the energy required for production should also become sustainable. Wind and solar parks are to be set up in Poland and Germany. “At the same time, we are also working with various start-ups on the subject of energy storage,” explains Schumacher. “Thinking about future generations is a personal issue for me.”

In his private life, the father of two tries to spend as much time as possible with his children. “The topic must not be viewed in isolation in companies, family must be lived privately and also in the company comprehensively,” says Schumacher.

The head of the company sees the medium-sized entrepreneurial spirit as Germany’s most important asset compared to other countries. “As a medium-sized industry, we have to seize our opportunities.”

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