Freudenberg affixed to the hygiene segment

Freudenberg Nonwovens, Division of Freudenberg Group, has invested in the personal care segment, an eye on expanding sales of disposable diapers, tampons and baby wipes in the country. Even without prospect of recovery of the domestic economy in the short term, the demand for personal hygiene items must maintain a good pace of expansion, believes the company's General Director, Klaus Homberg.
According to him, the personal care items are essential for the consumer and, this year, the thread must ensure the advance billing of non-woven Division of Freudenberg. "The personal care line products have higher added value and demand doesn't change much even in times of market downturn", says the Executive.
For Homberg, the segment numbers confirm the trend of expansion. According to data from the Nielsen consulting, sales of disposable diapers totaled r $ 4.5 million between September 2013 and August 2014, high of 19.2% compared with the 12 months immediately prior.
In the line of sanitary napkins, the growth was 11.9%, with R $ 2 million in sales in the same period. With the prospect of high demand, the company has invested in a new production line at the factory located in Jacareí, São Paulo.
"We're conducting operations of the new line of November and with it our productive capacity grew nearly 25%," says Homberg. The increase represented, only for the segment of products for hygiene, a high of 40% of the productive capacity. Considering all the manufacturing plant of the group, the gain was approximately 25%.
Although it does not disclose specific numbers about the non-woven Division, the Group announced an investment of r $ 40 million in its operations in South America last year. The contribution, which included projects of innovation and expansion of production lines in the country, was maintained even after the local market showing signs of deceleration.
"The project for expansion of the Jacareí plant were in the plans of the company from the end of 2012," recalls Klaus Homberg. For him, the time of retraction of the economy is passenger and with the adoption of the necessary adjustments, the local market should recover.
Innovation
In addition to the expansion of the Jacareí plant, Freudenberg has invested in innovation to offer products with higher added value and gain competitiveness against imports. "We are focused on developing products with higher quality personal care line," he says.
According to the Executive, if the actual remains undervalued, the Brazilian unit of export business can gain a new perspective. Today, 90% of production in the country is destined for the local market.
Performance
In 2013, the net turnover of the Freudenberg Group in Brazil, including non-wovens unit, was r $ 619 million, up 10.4% before 2012.
The performance figures in 2014 will only be disclosed by the company in March, but the Director of the Division of nonwovens in the country said that the result was weaker in relation to 2013.
In his assessment, the revenue in 2014, which did not follow the pace of growth of previous years, does not represent necessarily a crisis scenario and the prospect is of advancement of production over the next two years. "We already had years as best in 2010 and 2012, but we believe there is room to grow," he says.