Part of the German Maxim group, Cosmolux produces own-brand personal care products for supermarket chains like Aldi, Lidl, Rewe, Edeka, Auchan and Carrefour, as well as drug stores including DM and Rossmann. The group also develops and produces products for the brand Rituals.
“The biggest location of the Maxim group will be here in Luxembourg,” said Jürgen Lutze, the group’s chief technical officer. “We make the full range of products, from head to toe.”
The Echternach factory in 2020 produced more than 77m units in its different product ranges--equivalent to around 20,000 tonnes of personal care products. Cosmolux makes upwards of 1,000 different items.
“Two or three years ago we realised that all our locations were becoming too small. We are bursting at the seams,” said Lutze during a site visit. “We thought about the profitability, the efficiency of our locations, above all the motivation of our employees. The decision clearly fell for Luxembourg where we work together perfectly with authorities, with the commune, who support us when we want to create jobs.”
The money will be divided into a new €20m warehouse, a €25m upgrade and expansion of its bottling plant, €10m on the production of packaging and another €10m on making the site more energy efficient.
“We want to be greener and more sustainable,” said Lutze. To avoid empty shampoo bottles being transported to Luxembourg to be filled here before being shipped to more than 40 countries around the world, the company wants to start making its own packing in Echternach.
It already operates International Can in Echternach, which makes 80m deodorant spray bottles a year. But these need to be shipped to France, where Maxim group hosts another production site of the aerosols needed to fill them. This, too, will change in future and the cans will be filled on site.
International Can has also developed a bottle made of a majority of recycled aluminium.
The company will operate its logistics hub from Luxembourg in future and plans to eventually insource transport rather than relying on external freight companies to ship its products.
Pandemic bumper year
Jürgen Lutze and Rolf Giesen (left) during a tour of the premises with Prince Guillaume and economy minister Franz Fayot. Photo: MECO
The pandemic proved a bumper year for Cosmolux, which upped production by 40%. “People wash their hands more. Because of this, they need more hand lotion,” said Lutze.
The company only temporarily switched to making disinfectant last year, for example to supply Echternach schools when they came out of lockdown, but Lutze said this is not their “core business”.
The growth burst allowed Cosmolux to hire an extra 100 staff, growing the number of employees to 330, out of 1,300 staff group-wide. By 2025, it expects to employ 500 people.
But 90% of its workforce are cross-border commuters from nearby Germany. A scheme to train and integrate jobseekers with the help of jobs agency Adem failed in around 50 to 60% of cases, Lutze said, citing a lack of industry know-how.
A neighbouring materials manufacturer, for example, trains its staff at a nearby plant in Bitburg, Germany, and then sends them back to Luxembourg. With the Maxim group headquarter located in Cologne, this isn’t an option for Cosmolux. “We do want to train with Luxembourg,” the chief technical director said.
The comparatively high minimum wage isn’t holding the company back from its expansion plans in Luxembourg. “The wages are higher, but we did a comparison and the staff are more motivated and more efficient here than at all other locations. We’re not worse off because we pay higher wages.”
Company-wide, employees also received special pandemic bonuses last year.
The group was founded by Rolf Giesen in 1980 and is set to remain a family business once the 86-year-old retires. Giesen acquired the Echternach site in 2001 from Yves Rocher.
But the plant doesn’t only produce cosmetics, it also develops their formulas. Out of a company-wide team of around 40 employees working in research and development, five are based in Luxembourg, working mostly on natural cosmetics. “We have made a big leap forward,” said Lutze about the company’s natural cosmetics products. “We don’t need to hide from any brand manufacturer.”
To mark the investment, Crown Prince Guillaume and economy minister Franz Fayot (LSAP) on 25 March visited Cosmolux. Delano and Paperjam met with Lutze a day ahead of the event.
The Cosmolux plant operates 24 hours a day, five days a week, with employees working in three shifts. On the day of the visit, large vats were producing mouth wash, with a minty smell in the air. Production is switched regularly, after 20,000 to 100,000 units of any one product have been made.
Around 2,000 raw materials, from different oils to scents and colouring agents, are stored at the site. Even the very final step of production--packaging the products in special display cases for the different vendors--is taken care of in Echternach, an activity that will also expand under the investment plans.
“At the location here, we have as advantages the short distances to the economy ministry, to the commune, the highly motivated staff, further training,” Lutze said. “The whole concept is coherent. It’s a real joy to invest here and create the future.”