The Portuguese company Colquímica Adhesives, provider of hot-melt adhesives for industrial applications, recently inaugurated a new facility in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Portuguese Secretary of State for International Trade and Foreign Investment, Bernardo Ivo Cruz, and the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, Vi Lyles, attended the event. The facility started operation in 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, and currently accounts for a 20% increase in Colquímica Adhesives' global annual production capacity.

“I’m very pleased with the first 18 months of this new unit,” said Sofia Koehler, chairman of Colquímica Adhesives Inc. "In Charlotte, we found the ideal conditions to accelerate the globalization of the company's activity and explore the enormous potential of the North and Latin American markets."

With an initial investment of $12 million, the company has already added another $500,000 for technological modernization. The production facility incorporates high levels of automation in all production stages. With this focus, and aiming for the continuous increase of production and storage capacity, Colquímica Adhesives has already projected an additional investment of $2 million over the next 12 months.

The company has also engaged with local suppliers and partners. Since beginning operations in 2021, Colquímica Adhesives has spent over $6 million with U.S. suppliers, of which $5.5 million was with North Carolina companies. The opening of the facility in the United States represented a new stage in the growth path of Colquímica Adhesives, adding to the company’s two units in Portugal and one in Poznan, Poland, which was inaugurated in 2013. 

With a production capacity of 71,000 tons of industrial adhesives per year, the group reached a record turnover of $124 million in 2021, estimating $165 million in sales for 2022. In 2022, the U.S. subsidiary is expected to account for 7% of the group's total turnover, with about $12 million in sales. That number is expected to grow more than 50% next year, reaching $20 million and representing 10% of the Colquímica group's global invoicing.

In business for almost 70 years, Colquímica Adhesives currently exports its products to more than 60 countries, serving mainly the personal hygiene and nonwoven, mattresses, packaging, paper conversion, and product assembly markets.

For more information, visit: www.colquimica.com/en/.