Suzano-Kimberly-Clark Joint Venture Arbex Starts Operations With About 1 Million Tonnes of Tissue Capacity

Arbex, the joint venture formed by Brazilian pulp producer Suzano and Kimberly-Clark, started operations on 1 July 2026 and enters the European hygiene paper market with total capacity of about 1 million tonnes per year, according to EUWID Papier und Zellstoff. The trade publication interviewed Arbex country manager for the DACH region, Petra Ahlendorf, and the manager of the company's paper mill in Koblenz, Paul Sokol, about the new group's strategy for Europe and the projects lined up for the coming months.

Koblenz mill anchors the German footprint

The Koblenz site employs around 240 people and produces 40,000 tonnes of hygiene paper a year, Sokol told EUWID. He joined Kimberly-Clark as a paper engineer directly after his studies, later moved into process engineering, and has been with the company for 21 years, the last four as mill manager in Koblenz.

Sokol described the transition to the new ownership structure as a lengthy preparation process involving restructuring, optimisation and change. He said Suzano has brought a different approach to the newly created group, and that the decentralised model has prompted the Koblenz team to question established patterns and simplify processes.

Energy supply at the Koblenz mill is currently being reworked. According to Sokol, the approval for the project was granted under the previous German coalition government, but laying the lines and obtaining the necessary permits consumed considerable time. Despite that, the work is running ahead of schedule, and further modernisation projects are planned. The stated target is a complete switch to renewable energy by 2029 and a reduction in emissions of 50,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

The company is also raising the share of post-consumer recycled fibre in its products and is in regular contact with partner firms that supply recovered paper. Used paper towels, for example, are recycled and fed back into production, Sokol said.

DACH described as Europe's largest tissue market

Ahlendorf said the DACH region is economically strong and the largest tissue market in Europe. Despite market saturation, she sees scaling potential along the value chain and believes Arbex can still gain ground — both by changing how products are marketed and presented in stores and by opening up entirely new application areas to broaden product use.

Ahlendorf brings 26 years of experience in sales, marketing and country management. She began in marketing, spent two years in sales and three years in the B2B professional segment, and took over country management for Germany at Kimberly-Clark in 2020. Responsibility for Austria and Switzerland was later added to her remit.

On the transition itself, she said the switch was a complex process and that avoiding gaps on retail shelves was at times a challenge. Her stated goals are to move Arbex beyond the role of a hygiene paper supplier towards that of an adviser offering customers continuity and orientation, and to place greater emphasis on the family care segment.

Discount channel dominates German demand

Customer preferences differ noticeably between countries, reflecting variations in purchasing power and consumer behaviour, Ahlendorf told EUWID. Switzerland shows stronger demand for premium-segment products, while price sensitivity in Germany is of a different order: around 96 per cent of customers shop at discounters, regardless of income bracket — a level that Ahlendorf said exists in this intensity only in Germany.

Even so, she pointed to a slowly emerging trend in Germany towards premium bulk packs. Sustainability is becoming steadily more important to customers overall.

Established brands, new corporate name

Arbex is new to the market as a company, but its brands have been established for years, Ahlendorf said, so it does not have to fight for visibility. The company monitors what competitors are doing but does not derive individual measures from that alone.