Baerlocher strives for change in changing times

Covington, Ky. — Baerlocher wasn't out to make a single sale at the company's recent recycling summit held near Cincinnati. In fact, company representatives were specifically told not to even try.

Instead, the plastics additives maker wanted to bring together people from around the country to talk about the plastics recycling market and learn a bit from experts brought in from outside the company as well as Baerlocher officials. The idea was to simply advance the plastics recycling cause.

This holistic approach fits into what leadership describes as a change in how the company views itself, a position that has evolved in the last half-decade or so.

Baerlocher is in the business of selling additives for resin, including a significant portion of the business in PVC. But the company wants to move past a transactional relationship with customers to be viewed as a what Baerlocher officials called a trusted adviser.

By turning the traditional buyer-seller dynamic on its ear, Baerlocher sees a future where products, knowledge and relationships come together for the betterment of all involved.

Baerlocher, a half a dozen years ago, emphasized cost savings in its sales approach to selling additives for the recycling market.

But just as recycling has evolved into just part of a broader sustainability movement for so many companies, Baerlocher sees a role that is much more than just selling on price.

"When it comes to business as such — not only recycling — we're driving a move toward more sustainable systems," CEO Arne Schulle said during an interview at the recent summit, which was held in Covington near the company's Cincinnati operations.

"By positioning ourselves and making recycling more homogeneous, more usable and thereby enabling our customers to use more recyclate is a different positioning in the market," he said.

"We have to transform the whole group," Schulle said, if Baerlocher wants to be "competitive in a circular environment."

Munich is about 4,500 miles from Northern Kentucky, but both Schulle and Baerlocher's majority shareholder Tobias Rosenthal thought enough of the recycling summit to make the trip over from Baerlocher's headquarters to participate.

Selling additives into the plastics recycling market is important for the company, but Rosenthal said there are additional factors that will ultimately help push recycling rates higher, including packaging design.

"It's also about having the right material for the right application, and this also starts with the design for circularity," he said. "In the first production process, you start to think of how does it work in a circular way."

That front-end approach is different from a figure-out-how-to-recycle-later approach that's been common in plastics over time.

Rosenthal said that design for recycling does not necessarily mean using less plastic as different logistics concepts could actually feature packaging that is more robust and reusable, for example.

Ed Hall is CEO of Baerlocher USA, and part of his job is to sell additives. But that's not all, he said.

Make no mistake, Hall said: "We are a commercial operation. Life is more than just making money. If we can connect two people here that can change the way something is done and if we don't participate in it, well, yeah, that's a little bit painful and a little bit challenging. But at the end of the day, we've accomplished something."

The vast majority of the 90 or so attendees during the first day of the summit actually were not existing Baerlocher customers. That shows the importance and the need for such a gathering, Hall said.

Baerlocher USA has been holding similar summits for the PVC additives side of its business for years. These past meetings are helping to provide a blueprint for the company on the recycling side.

"I think it's going to be really important in where we go in the future. We're seeing it in the PVC business already, moving more toward a service business. How is it going to look in this business? I don't know. That's why we have these guys here," Hall said.

Hall used a play on words to help describe where he would like to see Baerlocher evolve with its products. "There's chemicals. But you and I sit together, we build chemistry," he said.

Schulle, as CEO of the entire Baerlocher Group, understands his company does not have all the answers. "We don't have the solution for everything. And we will not have the solution for everything. And we do not promise to find every solution. But perhaps we know somebody to help you," he said.

Gary Conroy, as head of the company's North American Strategic Business Units, specialty polymer additives and vinyl additives, agreed.

"We know how to sell additives. We've been doing that for a long, long time. But when you think about recycling from a circular economy, it's much bigger than just selling additives," said Conroy.

"We find ourselves right in that spot where we can have a meaningful impact in developing the whole value chain from start to finish," he said.