News Articles

Fibertex Personal Care

March 25, 2019

ASHEBORO — Danish company Fibertex Personal Care Corp. celebrated the grand opening of its first North American manufacturing facility on Friday.

Invited guests, which included Asheboro City and Randolph County officials, as well as customers, media and business and community leaders, were treated to breakfast, a ribbon cutting and a tour of the sparkling new plant. It’s located at 733 Commerce Place in Asheboro, off Pineview Street, on a tract of land near the former Goodyear plant.

Fibertex is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of spunbond/spunmelt nonwoven fabrics for key components in baby diapers, sanitary napkins and adult incontinence care products.

Founded in 1968 and expanded in 2007 with its print subsidiary, Innowo Print, it has operations in Denmark, Germany and Malaysia.

The Asheboro plant, the first in the United States, will eventually have capabilities for both nonwoven production and printing.

Currently, in this first phase of operations, only printing is done on-site. Employees number around a dozen, but eventually 145 jobs will be created as the company expands. All told, the company plans a $114 million investment.

Mikael Axelsen, Group CEO of Fibertex, welcomed guests, noting that “our journey” began two years ago when the company “tried to identify the right spot for us to build a base in the U.S.” and “it became very clear that North Carolina was the most attractive place to be.” Narrowing that choice down to Asheboro was helped by the welcoming people, well-developed industrial area, strong logistical connections, highways and rail.

“Once the decision was made on the location, we had a great announcement ceremony in Asheboro with a lot of VIPs, including the governor (Roy Cooper) and, of course, all of us. And as a welcome gift, we received the North Carolina Flag from the governor.

“Second came the ground-breaking ceremony which is exactly one year ago and this time we received the golden shovel,” he added, which is hanging on display in the break room, “and now here today with a brand new factory, two years after the first visit, not bad at all!”

Axelsen said the next parts of the journey will be different but challenging, including expansion; working with customers, suppliers and partners; and how to run production 24/7, efficiently and with high quality.

“Our end customers are babies so it is our responsibility to deliver the best. Today, we have a visitor from P&G (Procter & Gamble) who is our first customer of the site and will be an important customer as we develop our business. P&G is the world’s leading manufacturer of baby diapers worldwide and we supply them basically in all regions of the world. So, thank you for supporting our common business.”

Asheboro Mayor David Smith also had warm words of welcome for the new company.