To meet the growing demand for optical brighteners, used mainly in laundry, BASF will invest several million Swiss Francs in its manufacturing plant in Monthey in the canton of Valais. Construction will start before the end of 2019 and the new production lines will be operational in 2021. Additional investments will also be made to improve storage units, supply facilities and logistics processes.
Numerous investments since 2017
To meet this strong demand, BASF had invested in the extension of the optical brightener manufacturing building of the Monthey site as early as 2017. As part of this investment, a modern drying tower had also been built and highly automated packaging stations installed.
The BASF Monthey site is an important center for the production of high-performance pigments and optical brighteners. High performance organic pigments are used for the shading of automotive paints, paints, plastics, printing inks, synthetic fibers and in electronic applications, such as color filters for liquid crystal displays. Optical brighteners are used as additives in detergents. Many varieties of intermediate products are also manufactured in Monthey. More than 122,000 employees work for the BASF group. In 2018, the company had a worldwide turnover of approximately EUR 63 billion (about CHF 69.5 billion).
