The Belgian detergent manufacturer Christeyns has purchased the laundry detergent operation of Woellner Hygiene GmbH in Ludwigshafen, Germany for an undisclosed sum. The move confirms the continuation of the groupís active acquisition policy over recent years and strengthens their existing German laundry sales operation bringing the number of field technicians and dosing equipment engineers up to 19.

“We have been looking for an acquisition to boost our growth in the German market for some time. The Woellner business was an established family-run enterprise with a solid block of loyal customers and a good reputation in the marketplace” says Charlie Betteridge, European Marketing Director for the Christeyns group and also md of their German company.

As with previous takeovers, all sales and technical personnel have been taken on by Christeyns and product formulae and pricing will remain unchanged.

Production will be switched to one of Christeyns’ three ISO 9000 certified factories with distribution of the entire German range now going via the specialist warehousing and distribution company previously used by Woellner. Co-ordinated laboratory facilities in Belgium, France and the UK will continue the product and process development.