Four farmers from the village of Hahnennest in Baden-Württemberg shared a vision: shaping sustainable agriculture. In 2011, they formed Energiepark Hahnennest GmbH & Co. KG and built a biogas plant. The family-run farms themselves provide the raw material for the plant, with the digestate from the biogas process then spread on the fields as a valuable fertilizer.

Today, the company employs a total of 25 people in addition to managing directors Simon Rauch and Thomas Metzler and partners Edwin König and Felix Kaltenbach.

Producing silphie fibers from the harvested raw material is a multi-stage process. The ECONOMIZER and AGROWFIBER units developed by AGRES SYSTEMS are the key technologies in this process. Combining patented steam explosion (thermal hydrolysis) and custom fiber picking is the key to ensuring high quality fibers.
The team of experts at AGRES SYSTEMS bring to bear innovative technologies as well as many years of experience in environmental and energy system engineering to produce custom-made silphie fiber systems for OutNature.

PFLEIDERER SPEZIALPAPIERE is an agile mid-sized paper manufacturer that develops and markets custom solutions for food packaging, technical applications and decorative packaging. The company's three paper-making machines offer production capacity of 40,000 tons. PFLEIDERER leverages alternative fiber concepts and innovative barrier solutions to offer forward-looking solutions to cut down on plastic and composite packaging for customers all over the world. Its broad product portfolio of more than 100 special types and product variants is constantly adapted to customer needs and market requirements.

The Koehler Group was founded in 1807 and has been family-run from the beginning until today. The Group's core business is the development and production of high-quality specialty papers. These include thermal papers, playing card board, beverage coasters, fine papers, carbonless papers, recycled papers, decor papers, groundwood board, sublimation papers and, since 2019, innovative specialty papers for the packaging industry. In Germany, the Koehler Group with its approximately 2,500 employees has five production sites, and three more are located in the US.

The Packaging Hub is a place of work and research for experts in packaging technology, design and development. Customers reap the benefits of our expertise in material optimization and can have packaging tests carried out. The Hub also develops packaging systems on the basis of product and market requirements, in particular based on renewable raw materials.
The experts at the Packaging Hub use common processes ranging from large-format digital printing with UV inks or screen printing through thermoforming down to our in-house laminating and coating plant to design customized packaging samples and support series production.