Oswaldo Cruz, Chief Executive Officer of the Körber Business Area Tissue comments: “Our strong investments in ready-for-delivery machines and in the patent for the production of biodegradable face masks were fundamentally important for the success of our customers this year. The prospects for 2021 are also good for the growth of paper for sanitary use by industrial sectors such as hotels, restaurants, and offices.”

“We at Körber,” continues Oswaldo Cruz, “never stopped solving challenges for and with our customers during the pandemic. Our customers produce essential products such as toilet paper and kitchen towels and, in recent months, they needed to increase production output in a very short time. We were able to support them thanks also to the important investment in ready-for-delivery machines that we sold, installed, and made operational in a few months.”

“In our industry we usually work on customized orders based on customer specifications, which is why some 12 months plus normally pass until installation,” explains Cruz. “In spring this year we decided to prepare “not yet sold” lines, based on our most requested models with the aim to quickly respond to increasing customer demands. That paid off in our customers success and thus offered us new opportunities for growth.”

Another decisive aspect was the continued technological innovation: a technological upgrade was patented this summer. Customers of the Körber Business Area Tissue can now produce K.Protect Myfaceroll, a single-ply mask that is especially applicable for daily use in places such as airports, public transport, shopping centers, supermarkets, grocery stores, or workplaces – just to name a few. The patented machines can produce over 10 thousand facemasks per minute and are adaptable to the main “non-woven” materials including a particular bamboo-based material that is compostable with organic waste.

Through the combined use of the traditional surgical mask and the single-ply one, it is also possible to increase the protective efficacy of surgical masks by guaranteeing 99.8% filtration and an outside-facing surface that is always clean.