For more than 70 years, the machines at Wilhelm Rasch Spezialmaschinenfabrik have ensured, among other things, that delicate hollow chocolate figures are wrapped in perfectly fitting foil. The managing director is Tina Gerfer, the granddaughter of the company founder. She has modernized the company and successfully guided it through difficult times. At the same time, she preserves traditions and sometimes concludes contracts with a handshake.
The special machine factory was founded by Tina Gerfer’s grandfather Wilhelm Rasch and his business partner Otto Römmling in Cologne in 1950. The engineer Rasch had the idea of how fragile hollow chocolate bodies could be wrapped in printed foil by machine. Today, Santas, Easter bunnies, comic figures and World Cup mascots made of chocolate are wrapped in tailor-made aluminium foil on the Rasch special hollow body wrapping machine. However, the machines have long since outgrown hollow body packaging and also wrap marzipan, erasers, soaps or Ramadan cookies. The machine portfolio ranges from the all-rounder RU (Rasch Universal Packaging Machine) to highly specialized wrapping machines and tempering machines to complete packaging lines with infeed and outfeed systems.
Tina Gerfer, Managing Director of Rasch Maschinenbau. (Image: Rasch)
Two years ago, the company with around 40 employees moved a few kilometers away from its headquarters in Cologne-Bickendorf to neighbouring Hürth. Tina Gerfer has been managing the specialist machine manufacturer since 2008. “My grandfather prepared me early on for my role at the head of the company. He not only taught me social responsibility, he also taught me the importance of resilience and perseverance.” After he died in 1982, an uncle initially took over the management of the company and Tina Gerfer decided to train at the European Business and Language Academy EWS. “Untypically for a family of academics, I decided not to go to university. I always found people exciting and wanted to learn languages. That helps me a lot today, and I speak Spanish and English with customers almost more often than German.” Her day usually starts at five o’clock, says the Managing Director.
“That’s when I read and answer emails. As we have customers all over the world, I reach some of them early in the morning, depending on the time zone.”
Insolvency seen as an opportunity
In 2013, the continued existence of the medium-sized company was in jeopardy. “At the time, we had a major order for five identical machines, but a weak equity ratio, which made financing very difficult and I had to take personal liability. In the end, we opted for insolvency proceedings under self-administration and had to appoint an external CRO (Chief Restructuring Officer) to the management board as interim manager. That was a difficult step, but I would always make the same decision again. I learned during that time that insolvency under self-administration is not a stigma and that you should deal with it openly. Surprisingly, all of our customers reacted very understandingly. There was a great deal of trust, partly because it turned out that my grandfather had helped many of his customers in similar situations. We then managed to settle all liabilities within two years. And – what was particularly important to me personally – we were able to keep all our employees and didn’t have to make any redundancies. What’s more, no customer or supplier bailed out. The whole process was an opportunity that also made us more attractive for a takeover.”
In 2018, Tina Gerfer decided to sell the company to the Mohrbach Group. “We were a company without a successor, as my daughter signalled early on that she was not interested in managing the company. So we had to secure the location and the future of the employees. Now we are part of the Mohrbach Group and have a broader strategic position. It is important that Mohrbach comes from the industry and is not just an investor. We can therefore retain the character of the family business.” In addition to Wilhelm Rasch Spezialmaschinenfabrik, the Rhineland-Palatinate-based specialist for high-performance cardboard packaging machines Mohrbach also owns the subsidiary Heripack Verpackungsmaschinen, based in Meschede.
Sustainability is part of the philosophy
Tina Gerfer is proud that sustainability has always been part of the company philosophy. “Our machines offer a long service life. Total cost of ownership has always been a priority for us. We were ridiculed for this 15 years ago, but today things are changing because sustainability has moved into focus.” Rasch Maschinenbau guarantees production reliability and availability, and employees are always on hand for servicing.
“We are constantly modernizing, but we also maintain tradition, we are down-to-earth and like to be old-fashioned. For me, for example, a handshake is a contract. Of course, we make written contracts, but I always stand by my verbal agreements.”
Tina Gerfer has also been involved in the Cologne Chamber of Industry and Commerce for several years and has been a member of the chamber’s committee of nine vice presidents since March 2020. “As SMEs, we have a voice that we should raise in order to make a difference. My ‘favourite topics’ are the Supply Chain Act, which I find very difficult in this form, and the big issue of mobility. I am also passionate about the issue of training. The dual training system in Germany is a great system.” And there is another important issue close to Tina Gerfer’s heart.
“Of course, I’m in favour of equality. It’s sad that we still have to talk about it at all. Women should have their own self-image and work according to their own inclinations, be assertive and go against all platitudes. We should be able to work as a matter of course, even if we have children, or not. And we should do all this without a guilty conscience. I can only advise women not to bend over backwards and not to think about whether what they do is a man’s domain.”