Being built in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, the planned investment is expected to be a multi-million dollar project with production capacity expected to exceed 25,000 metric tons per annum and start-up scheduled for early 2014.
"The aim of this project is to establish production in Americana to improve our ability to serve the market in Brazil and South America," explains Patrik Wohlhauser, the member of the Evonik's Executive Board responsible for the Consumer, Health & Nutrition segment and the South America region.
Closer to the customer
Evonik already supplies customers in this region through its service and logistics center in Guarulhos, Brazil, but with company planning to step up these activities in the future, the further expansion seemd like the logical step.
"A production facility in Brazil would expand our global production network for the consumer goods industry and give Evonik access to South America, which is an attractive growth market," comments Dr. Claus Rettig, who heads up the Consumer Specialties Business Unit.
Evonik has production facilities for cosmetic ingredients in Europe, the USA and Asia. In addition to this project, earlier in the year Evonik announced that it would be building a further production plant for ingredients for cosmetics and household consumer goods in Shanghai to serve the Asian market.
According to a member of the executive board of Evonik, Dr Dahai Yu, the rapidly increasing demand for R&D facilities in Shangai reflects the strong focus on ‘innovation in China for China’, a key factor for Evonik’s successful growth in Asia, especially in the Greater China region.
Keeping with trends
It appears Evonik is matching the trends of the moment, after market analyst Euromonitor announced that Brazil and China are poised for the most dramatic growth - a situation that spells significant opportunities for cosmetics ingredients companies, and one, which it appears, Evonik are taking advantage of.
The cosmetics and personal care industry in Brazil showed a 15 percent growth in value in 2010 driven by per capita spend on cosmetics and personal care which was US$192, just short of the US average annual spend of US$193.
Meanwhile the Chinese market grew by 12 percent in 2010 and is forecast to achieve growth of over US$10bn by 2015, by far the highest increase of any country globally.