Packprofil sp. z o.o. | ul. Zakładowa 3, 47-110 Kolonowskie, woj. opolskie
The immediate cause of the establishment was a periodic surplus of timber. In the winter of 1903, as a result of heavy wet snowfall, the forests of Prince Stolberg were severely damaged by the stand of trees. Due to the large amount of lagging wood, a decision was made to start carton production.
The plant’s crew
A century ago – in 1907. – construction of the plant was seriously advanced, and production started in 1908. The production line, consisting of 33 evaporators, 3 stitchers, 2 round-bottom dehydrators, 3 holenders and a carton making machine, was supplied by J. M. Voith of Heidenheim. The plant’s production capacity was estimated at about 20 tons of cardboard and paperboard.
In 1930, the company was transformed into a limited liability company, control of which was retained for a time by the Duke of Stolberg-Wernigerode. In the following years, the company’s shares passed to a bank from Amsterdam N.V. Internationale Inwestmentbank te Amsterdam. As of April 3, 1937, the factory was leased from the Dutch bank by the owner of a landed estate in Upper Bavaria, Baron Trabart von und zum Tann, together with Berlin lawyer Richard Karl Wolff. In 1943, the Cologne company was bought out by a wealthy company specializing in cardboard and paper products – Berlin- Neuroder Kunstanstalten A.G.
The interwar period in the company’s history was a period of operation without major investments. Any modernization was only aimed at maintaining the production capacity achieved earlier. During the years of World War II, prisoners of war were used to work at the factory in an attempt to improve the profitability of production.
At the end of the war, a fire broke out at the plant, partially destroying the depleted production equipment.
After the end of the war, the Soviet military authorities did not hand over the plant to the Polish administration until November 1945, as military equipment repairs had previously been carried out on the factory grounds. After the plant was taken over by the Polish authorities, it was nationalized as property previously owned by a German company – without the right to compensation.
In 1945, all paper industry factories were subordinated to several regional unions. The Kolonowskie factory was incorporated into the Southern Unification of the Pulp and Paper Industry. In 1947, the unions were liquidated, creating state-owned enterprises in their place. The Kolonowskiem plant was then subordinated to the Krapkowice enterprise.
After machinery overhauls, production began in August 1946, and by the end of the year 1.7 thousand tons of cardboard had been made. Starting in the 1950s, the plant produced 6-7 thousand tons of brown cardboard per year.
The factory was operated for many years without major investment. It was only in the first half of the 1970s that the machinery was modernized. The production of pulp was abandoned, switching the machine to the use of waste paper. At the same time, the factory’s production capacity was doubled. The plant reached a record high in 1978, when 13,600 tons of paperboard were produced.
In the following years, already small investments were made in the plant: in the 1980s, a corrugator winder was installed, enabling the introduction of rollboard production.
Initially, cardboard from Kolonowskie was used for the manufacture of bulk packaging and in bookbinding. In 1983, the production of recycled paperboard for making steam was introduced in Kolonowskie. the new product was not of the highest quality (it had lower mechanical parameters than traditional paperboard made with a batch of rag fibers), but due to the shortage of proper paperboard for roofing paper, paperboard from Kolonowskie was in high demand. The first batch of recycled paperboard-as a scarce product-was sold to distributors.
Since 1988, the plant has produced cardboard sleeves. A machine, with a capacity of 2,500 mb per 8 hours, imported from Malczyce, was used for this purpose.
The social and economic changes introduced since 1989 initially complicated the situation of the Kolonowskie plant. The decline in demand for cardboard, which had been received in any quantity so far, became the main cause of serious trouble. At the same time, employment decreased in the mid-1970s, the factory employed about 200 people in 1988. 139, and in 1991 only 103 people. The plant could not count on the help of its owner, the Krapkowice Paper Mill, which was itself facing serious problems.
In view of the continuing decline in demand for paper and cardboard in Poland in 1989-1992, a permanent solution to the plant’s problems was seen in the introduction of processing in Kolonowskie and offering not cardboard, but products made from it. On August 1, 1990, the plant’s management created a new structure, called the Cardboard Production Plant in Kolonowskie – Agency, which leased production assets from the Paper Mill in Krapkowice. The form of the agency did not allow for investment. Therefore, at the end of 1990, the Civil “Company Przedsiębiorstwo Wielobranżowe POLKAR” was established, which took over the factory on lease in 1991. The company’s task was to create opportunities for investment in the development of paperboard processing.
In a short period of time, a new machine was purchased for the production of sleeves and equipment for making boxes for candle wrapping. People previously employed in cardboard production were transferred to operate the new equipment.
The most successful solution turned out to be the processing of cardboard into angles – a product not previously manufactured in Poland. In 1991, a company was established under the name Packprofil Sp. z o.o. J.V. with a Finnish shareholder – OY ELTETE Ab – which erected the technology to produce angle bars and sold the relevant machinery.
The cardboard factory, being the main employer in Kolonowskie for 120 years, tied together almost the entire town and surrounding villages, providing a living for many families. Often, after parents, children and, in time, grandchildren took up jobs at the plant.
