Henkel has multiplied the volume of the plant by 12 since its beginning in 1990 and has been granted the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) status, currently the highest status by the Customs Administration that can be granted to a company in the European Union.
The status brings benefits in the form of facilitated customs checks, which are related to safety and security, and simplifications in accordance with the customs regulations to economic operators meeting the conditions and criteria.
The Germany-based personal and home care provider says gaining this status is a 'logical continuation of the work on simplified customs procedures that it has been applied at the facility for over a decade'.
“Maribor is one of Henkel Beauty Care’s most important production sites as well as the technical competence center for R&D, packaging, planning and microbiology. We made this investment because doing well is not enough, we needed to exploit our full potential,” says director, Melita Ferlež.
“With more than 550 employees, we produced 45,000 tons in volume or about 265 million pieces of cosmetic products in 2013," she adds.
The brand's hair, body, skin & oral care categories are run out of this facility, specifically the Schwarzkopf, Palette, Taft, Syoss, Fa, Le Chat, Neutromed, Vademecum, AOK and Diadermine ranges, to more than 30 countries around the world.
A busy year for Henkel...
Henkel recently signed an agreement with San Francisco-based TSG Consumer Partners that added three big hair care brands to its portfolio.
In late 2014, Henkel added the SexyHair, Alterna and Kenra brands to its hair care portfolio in a €270m deal, which already includes the global retail hair care brands Schwarzkopf and Syoss.
The three brands are forecasted to strengthen the company’s presence in the market for hair styling and hair care, and in particular makes it one of the biggest players in the global professional hair care market, generating an additional €140m in yearly income.
The offer worked out to be approximately 1.9 times the yearly income of the TSG business, and is said to have beaten another recent bid by competitor Revlon to buy up hair care player Colomer that equated to approximately 1.2 the value of annual sales.