Can you explain what the company does in the tank container coatings sector again?
For more than 20 years, HÜNI+CO has been the first address in Europe for highly functional anti-corrosion coatings for ISO tank containers and co. The family-owned company has been a reliable partner to industry for more than 160 years. Coatings of all kinds - from anti-corrosion and anti-friction coatings to non-stick coatings (e.g, Teflon® or Halar®) - have been the main area of business since the 1960s. It is, therefore, fair to say that HÜNI+CO, with over six decades of experience, is one of the leading coating companies in Europe.
How has the last 12 months been for the company?
We look back on a respectable 2021 - despite all the imponderables brought about by the Covid pandemic. The two pandemic years have shown us that we are a crisis-proof and well-diversified company.
We are therefore also confident that we will cope well with the current energy crisis in Europe. We are also very satisfied with the course of this year so far. On the customer side, we were able to implement exciting and large new projects. We have succeeded in this primarily because we have positioned our team of employees very well.
We understand that HÜNI+CO plans to expand and extend your tank container coating business to the Antwerp/Rotterdam and maybe also to the Ruhr Valley area of Germany? Can you tell us a little bit about this development and its ideas behind it?
Yes, indeed. We see a strong demand in the market to be able to carry out complete tank container coatings with Proco-Email®, ChemLINE 784® and other functional coatings also at other locations.
In fact, we already took the first preparatory steps for this a few years ago when we launched the first tank container repair shop, at that time in cooperation with the Group Van Loon/GETS.
Today, we have already successfully qualified more than 11 different depots in Belgium, the Netherlands, Dubai, and Germany as tank container repair shops.
The concept is very successful, and now the next consistent step will follow from next year, which is offering complete tank container coatings also in other locations than Friedrichshafen.
We are currently in talks and negotiations with several potential partners, and I am very confident that we will be able to go to market with our expansion by the transport and logistic trade fair in Munich in May 2023.
Is good to hear that you are planning these developments – so can we say that the rise in energy costs and the uncertainty surrounding the war in Ukraine has not put you off expanding?
We too are concerned about current developments in the energy market and their overall economic impact - especially in Europe. At the same time, however, we also see opportunities for development and improvement. For example, we have already launched a very extensive energy efficiency program in which all energy consumers are being critically assessed and optimized where possible.
In that sense, the energy crisis is also a kind of incubator or accelerator in energy efficiency for us. Topics that we had on our agenda for the very mid-term have suddenly moved to the top of the priority list.
These are the levers we can and must pull now. Beyond that, we can only hope that we are not heading into a severe recession in terms of the economy as a whole and that our politicians introduce sensible and targeted measures to prevent or at least precisely cushion that.
Can you give us a prediction about what HÜNI+CO will be doing in 2023?
The year ahead will be a very exciting one for us. The focus will be on the further development and expansion of our tank container coatings into the Antwerp/Rotterdam and Ruhr regions.
Nothing is ready for a decision yet, but by the end of next year we will be looking at a new and established structure that will open new opportunities for us and, above all, for our customers.
Complete tank container coatings by HÜNI+CO are then also possible at the above-mentioned locations.
For more information: Visit: hueni.de
Coatings to beat corrosion
