Important investment for the future

Tetra's new building was officially inaugurated at the beginning of September at a ceremony attended by Christian Wulff, Premier of the German Federal state Lower Saxony, and other guests. The managing director of Tetra, Wolfgang Mollenhauer, described the construction of the new plant as a further step towards making Melle the "global metropolis of aquatics". In his address he also detailed the interesting prehistory of the new factory, in which red socks played a key role. This was because the idea for the project was conceived, according to Wolfgang Mollenhauer, in the summer of 2003 at a baseball game featuring the Boston Red Sox, in the margins of a management conference involving Tetra and its previous proprietor Triton.  The go-ahead was given following two further management meetings, and when the Triton Co. investor AXA also approved the project, the deal was perfect. Even the sale of Tetra to Spectrum Brands did not change anything. It was the site conditions that posed a bigger obstacle to the project, and extensive preliminary works were required before the building could be erected on the difficult building ground. The foundation stone was finally laid on 3 June 2005, and topping-out took place three months later on 2 September.Melle is thus becoming increasingly important to the globally active aquatics company. Tetra employs around 420 people here. Worldwide it has a workforce of over 800 and enjoys annual sales of € 220 mio. The company's logistics operations were centralised in the Melle-Gerden industrial zone a few years ago. Following the completion of the new factory in Herrenteich, east of the existing premises, and the relocation of the previous plant in Preußisch Oldendorf-Offelten, 20 km away, the Tetra production and distribution process cycle is now complete in the centre in Lower Saxony. The previously separate divisions covering production (Melle) and filling/packing (Preußisch Oldendorf-Offelten) have now been united in one new production facility with state-of-the-art technology, and the synergy effects achieved thereby should give the company further advantages in global competition. All 90 staff from Preußisch Oldendorf are employed at the new location.The new premises comprise an area of 8 000 m², bringing the total production area to 10 000 m², plus 2 500 m² of offices, workshops and a cafeteria. The visual showpiece is a lavishly designed garden pond featuring islands planted in a Mediterranean style.In addition to the…