The Marchesini Group has taken over 100% of Schmucker, a company from Gorizia, in northeastern Italy, that specialises in building stickpack packaging machinery for the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic markets.
Established in1977, Schmucker started operations as a small workshop on the border between Italy and Slovenia, where the two Schmucker brothers set up a small business to design systems for the food industry.
Over following years, they built single-line and multiple-line packaging machines for sticks filled with liquid, powder, granular, cream and gel products.
The growing demand of multinational enterprises, alongside experiments on cutting-edge prototypes, convinced the company to diversify the reference markets, which boosted its growth impressively.
Today, Schmucker employs 80 people and its turnover in 2017 was €10.5 million, with a share of 80% in exports.
Pietro Cassani, Marchesini Group CEO, said: “Just like we did for the other acquisitions, Schmucker too will continue to be managed by its founders to guarantee business continuity, to safeguard the local suppliers and to pass on their know-how."
Marchesini’s acquisition of Schmucker came after that of Dumek, a company specialised in designing processing machines for cosmetics, of Vibrotech, working in the field of infeed and positioning systems for automated industrial processes and of SEA Vision, a leading manufacturer of inspection systems used in the pharmaceutical anti-counterfeit sector.
Similar to the previous transactions, the acquisition of Schmucker is aligned with Marchesini's expansion strategy, which is also occurring on the internal lines too with the launch of the Beauty Division and the new rapid prototyping department, which was inaugurated on 25 May this year.
Commenting on the Schmucker business, Cassani said: "The single-dose stickpack market is very interesting. Over recent years, it has moved from food to pharmaceuticals, also thanks to the ease-of-use and to a size that saves 20-30% of packaging material compared with the sachets sealed on four sides”.
CEO Enrico Schmucker, added: “We are honoured to belong to an enterprise such as the Marchesini Group. We are convinced that we will provide an important contribution to the Group’s expansion strategies thanks to our skills and our team”.
The two companies have already started to work together. At the Achema tradeshow in Frankfurt, Schmucker exhibited a sachet line, which has been sold to SIT in Trezzano sul Naviglio, an Italian contract packer that exports most of its production.
Schmucker follows last month’s acquisition of 80% of Creinox, a company in Ariano Polesine (Rovigo) that works with stainless steel, especially to product containers and tanks for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food industries. Creinox registered a turnover of €1 million in 2017.
