Presentation of the Sustainability Report 2021

Fall­er Pack­ag­ing can look back on a suc­cess­ful fis­cal year 2021 despite the ongo­ing Coro­na pan­dem­ic and tur­bu­lence on the raw mate­ri­als mar­ket. The spe­cial­ist for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­ondary pack­ag­ing was able to increase its sales by 3.3 per­cent to 147.8 mil­lion euros.

In order to pro­vide the pub­lic with a com­pre­hen­sive insight into the activ­i­ties and changes at Fall­er Pack­ag­ing, the com­pa­ny pro­duces a sus­tain­abil­i­ty report every year — and this was also the case for 2021. Enti­tled “Turn­ing crises into oppor­tu­ni­ties, for peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment.”, it high­lights the cur­rent eco­nom­ic, envi­ron­men­tal and social aspects of the spe­cial­ist for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­ondary packaging.

In addi­tion to the incon­ve­niences of the Covid pan­dem­ic, eco­nom­ic chal­lenges also arose in 2021: Short­ages of raw mate­ri­als and exor­bi­tant price increas­es for mate­ri­als and ener­gy made them­selves felt from the mid­dle of the year. Nev­er­the­less, the man­u­fac­tur­er took advan­tage of its oppor­tu­ni­ties and looks back on a suc­cess­ful year: “Sales at our Ger­man sites increased slight­ly,” explains Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer Dr. Daniel Keesman with sat­is­fac­tion. “Our inter­na­tion­al sub­sidiaries in Den­mark, Poland and Hun­gary are record­ing sales increas­es, some of them strong.” In con­crete terms, this means that Fall­er Pack­ag­ing was able to increase its sales again — by 3.3 per­cent to now 147.8 mil­lion euros.

Fall­er Pack­ag­ing again invest­ed heav­i­ly in the fur­ther devel­op­ment of its sites in 2021. A total of 7.8 mil­lion euros — cor­re­spond­ing to an invest­ment ratio of 5.3 per­cent — went main­ly into the expan­sion of automa­tion and dig­i­ti­za­tion. The com­pa­ny’s equi­ty ratio was once again above aver­age in 2021.

CO2 neutrality and social change

Fall­er Pack­ag­ing also con­tin­ues to be on the right track eco­log­i­cal­ly. The com­pa­ny con­tin­ued to work on its ener­gy and raw mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion and took the issue of sus­tain­abil­i­ty into even sharp­er focus. “That’s why we became a part­ner in the ‘Ziel­ger­ade 2030’ project — the joint project of the South Baden Cham­ber of Indus­try and Com­merce and the Freiburg Ener­gy Agency — and have set our­selves the goal of oper­at­ing in a CO2-neu­tral man­ner from the year 2030,” explains man­ag­ing part­ner Dr. Michael Faller.

For Fall­er Pack­ag­ing, sus­tain­abil­i­ty also means assum­ing social respon­si­bil­i­ty. This ben­e­fits the com­pa­ny’s own employ­ees as well as the region in which the com­pa­ny is root­ed. Despite the ongo­ing Coro­na pan­dem­ic, Fall­er Pack­ag­ing was able to expand its work­force, so that 1,325 peo­ple now work at its sites in Ger­many and Europe. The increase in the num­ber of women in man­age­ment posi­tions is also encour­ag­ing. On the one hand, the num­ber of female spe­cial­ists, i.e. employ­ees with extend­ed skills, has increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly from 6.8 to 18.9 per­cent. On the oth­er hand, Fall­er Pack­ag­ing has increased the pro­por­tion of women on the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee to almost 30 per­cent through the addi­tion of new members.

140 years of Faller Packaging

The pos­i­tive fis­cal year is not the only rea­son to cel­e­brate: Fall­er Pack­ag­ing will also be cel­e­brat­ing its 140th com­pa­ny anniver­sary on May 1, 2022. It all began in 1882, when August Fall­er found­ed the “Graphis­che Kun­stanstalt”, a lith­o­graph­ic print­ing com­pa­ny in Wald­kirch that pro­duced busi­ness sta­tionery, post­cards and labels. Times of steady growth fol­lowed, but also numer­ous ups and downs. “Major chal­lenges were cer­tain­ly the two world wars, each of which meant a new start forced from out­side,” Dr. Fall­er cites as an exam­ple. “Many employ­ees killed in the wars and sales mar­kets that had col­lapsed demand­ed a will to rebuild and a new direction.”

One of the most impor­tant strate­gic deci­sions in the com­pa­ny’s recent his­to­ry was made 30 years ago: Fall­er Pack­ag­ing with­drew from all oth­er areas at that time and focused exclu­sive­ly on the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal mar­ket. As quick­ly became appar­ent, this was the right course of action: today Fall­er Pack­ag­ing is one of the lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pack­ag­ing with sev­en sites in Europe.

“For 140 years now, the com­pa­ny August Fall­er GmbH & Co. KG has always been owned by the found­ing fam­i­ly as well, and for more than 100 years it has always been man­aged by a man­ag­ing direc­tor of the fam­i­ly and an exter­nal man­ag­ing direc­tor. It is an hon­or and an oblig­a­tion for me, togeth­er with Dr. Michael Fall­er, to lead the inter­na­tion­al group Fall­er Pack­ag­ing for 15 years and to ensure that we can con­tin­ue to devel­op suc­cess­ful­ly. This long com­pa­ny his­to­ry tes­ti­fies across all gen­er­a­tions to great will, the right atti­tude, many good deci­sions and pro­nounced resilience in exis­ten­tial crises.”

- Dr. Daniel Keesman, Chief Exec­u­tive Officer