A symbolic ground-breaking ceremony marked the start of construction of the new hall for the barrier technology product center at KHS’ Hamburg factory. The building will provide space for further growth in the coating segment and secure the site’s future in the long term. From left to right: Thorsten Schenk (Dortmund branch manager of Goldbeck West GmbH), Dr. Joachim Konrad (head of the KHS Large Machine Product Division), Dr. Margit Kiefer (deputy chair of the KHS Works Council in Hamburg), Martin Resch (CFO Finance, Procurement and IT of KHS), Kai Acker (CEO of KHS), Gunnar Groebler (CEO of Salzgitter AG), Walter Schön (CHRO of KHS), Ralf Pentinghaus (head of Facility Management at KHS), Alexander Ahlvers (architect for Industrie Planung Architekten und Ingenieure GmbH).
The KHS Group is writing a further chapter in its success story at its plant in Hamburg: the manufacturer of filling and packaging systems is investing over eleven million euros in a new hall for its barrier technology product center. In the future, all Plasmax coating technology departments will be housed under one roof. The building covering around 4,300 square meters is to be constructed on new factory premises on Hellmesbergerweg and is due to start operation in spring 2027. With this new production shop, KHS will be optimizing its processes and creating space for further growth.
“Our barrier technology is a key growth driver for the corporate success of the entire KHS Group. The demand for our machines in the InnoPET FreshSafe series has quadrupled over the past five years,” said Kai Acker, CEO of KHS GmbH, at the official ground-breaking ceremony for the new production shop on May 22, 2026. All KHS employees at the Hamburg site were invited to witness the start of the project. “The construction of our new hall and expansion of our factory premises secure jobs in the long term and are a clear sign of commitment to our production locations in Germany,” Acker added.
Unique first-class KHS technology
The factory in Hamburg pools the resources of the PET technology competence center within the KHS Group. A pioneer in PET bottle production, trailblazing systems and solutions that have shaped the beverage and packaging industry worldwide have been engineered here for over 50 years. These include high-performance stretch blow molders in the InnoPET Blomax series, InnoPET BloFill fillers and coating machines featuring Plasmax technology that’s absolutely unique on the market. KHS’ InnoPET FreshSafe blocks coat PET bottles with a wafer-thin, transparent layer of glass in the Plasmax process. This reliably protects sensitive beverages against oxidation and loss of carbon dioxide. It therefore preserves taste, color and quality for long periods of time and lengthens the product’s shelf life.
The two product centers for stretch blow molding and barrier technology manage all key processes from development through assembly and installation to sale and commissioning. To date they shared three production shops. Strong growth in the barrier technology segment in particular means that these units have now reached the limits of their capacity. “To make our processes more efficient and increase production, we’re going to combine all relevant departments in a new hall,” explains Dr. Joachim Konrad, head of the Large Machine Product Division at KHS.
Improved assembly and optimized preliminary testing
The benefits here include shorter distances that lighten the load on personnel and optimized processes to encourage close cooperation between the various departments. “Once we’ve convinced customers of our barrier system, most of them then opt for turnkey lines. This also benefits our other KHS production sites who subsequently receive orders for packaging technology, palletizers and other equipment,” Konrad continues. Assembly will also profit from the new production shop: instead of building entire machines all in one place, employees will be able to mount individual modules in parallel at defined workstations. These will then be assembled to create a full machine and commissioned. “This allows us to work on several modules at the same time which can then be better subjected to preliminary testing,” states Konrad. “These adapted processes shorten lead times and machine occupancy times in the shop. With this, we can deliver to our customers even faster.”
What’s more, the laboratory area, where KHS tests the coated bottles and develops new coatings and coating types, will be given a new paternoster system. This will enable bottle batches to be automatically stored and retrieved as required using a specific code. And finally, KHS has placed the bottle and temporary storage unit closer to the laboratory and production areas.
No obstruction for local traffic during construction
KHS is having the new building erected on Hellmesbergerweg on its expanded premises. It directly butts onto the existing KHS site on Meiendorfer Straße. The new production shop has been designed as a classic reinforced concrete skeleton building with sandwich elements. As materials will be delivered via the existing plant premises, local traffic won’t be affected by construction work.
KHS is building its new investment so that it will be completely carbon neutral. This is ensured by the use of green electricity, a photovoltaic system installed on the roof and a closed heating circuit with heat pumps and heat recovery from the coating machine cooling circuits.