Progroup reports record revenue in 2022

Progroup AG, a Germany-based recycled-content containerboard and corrugated board maker, has reported record-breaking revenue that increased by about 30 percent in 2022 compared with the previous year. Regarding its ability to stay profitable, the company cites in part the operation of a waste-to-energy (WTE) plant adjacent to one of its mills as being helpful.

The family-run company says its growth curve is on a steep upward trajectory despite the need to overcome some challenging business conditions last year.

“[Last year] was very much characterized by rising energy prices, a much slacker consumer climate and therefore weaker demand for packaging and corrugated board,” Progroup CEO Maximilian Heindl says. “These trends also had an impact on us.

“This is why it is so pleasing to report that in the two main areas of our business, corrugated board sheets and containerboard, we managed to improve our economic performance and increase our revenue to around 1.8 billion euros ($1.97 billion)," he adds. 

Among other factors, the company says it benefited from having a WTE plant at its Eisenhüttenstadt, Germany, site. The power plant consumes byproducts and rejects waste materials from paper production and also from industry, according to Progroup, then supplies the site’s PM2 paper machine with “all the hot steam it needs.” The power plant also produces electricity.

The amount of electricity produced in Eisenhüttenstadt is equivalent to roughly 50 percent of the power required by PM2. “We’ve always invested for the long term and in sustainable technologies that make us, as an energy-intensive company, even less dependent on fossil fuels,” Heindl says.

To ensure Progroup is even less dependent on fossil fuels in the future, the company has started constructing a similar WTE plant at its mill in Sandersdorf-Brehna, Germany. The project, set to start operating at the end of 2025, also will enable Progroup to save around 80,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions each year.

In its most recent sustainability report, Progroup names recovered paper as its most important raw material. It calls the scrap paper market “highly competitive” but writes, “using recovered paper makes more sense ecologically than purchasing fresh fiber.”

“Taking ecological, economic and social responsibility always has been and still is part of the role we feel we must play as a family company," Heindl says. "As a manufacturer of recyclable products, we are part of the circular economy that conserves resources."

Heindl also says Progroup is managing its sites to “have a strict ‘zero waste’ principle and [is] consistently developing this approach, always with the aim of avoiding waste, reducing CO₂ emissions and conserving resources.”

In its review of last year, Progroup says it remains on course to expand internationally. It's building its next corrugated sheetfeeder plant (PW16) in the Italian town of Cessalto and production has already started at its corrugated sheetboard facility in Stryków, Poland.

Among Progroup’s assets are three containerboard mills, located in Burg, Eisenhüttenstadt and Sandersdorf-Brehna, Germany.