The cause of the fire, which destroyed most of the fabric of the building and badly damaged much of its equipment, is still not known. The damage is estimated at around €50M, although fortunately no staff were injured.
The Rhymney factory is a big producer and packer of household cleaning and personal care products, as well as wipes and pharma goods ranging from blister packs to syringes. To ensure a continuing service to customers who include many of Europe's top multinationals, Budelpack has moved much of the plant's work to its other operations in mainland Europe in the fire's aftermath. A limited amount of co-packing is also being undertaken temporarily at a small industrial unit in Rhymney.
Budelpack, which has sites in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands and Spain, and is headquartered in Holland's Bergen op Zoom, has a second UK contract manufacturing and packing site at March in Cambridgeshire exclusively serving the food sector.
The Rhymney plant employs 200, 140 of whom are full-time. Corporate communications executive Nanneke Nieuwkerk says: "Currently some of the site's staff are working on a shift basis in the industrial unit, but we have been investigating several potential new sites in and around Rhymney and hope to move into new premises as soon as possible. We have also moved a number of machines from Holland to enable production to continue to the optimum level."
