This little-known Charlotte company is producing things you use all the time. Take a look

A growing company in southwest Charlotte is likely a part of most people’s daily lives — and they don’t even know it.

That tube of Essence Lash mascara, plastic bottle of Tresemme styling spray or glass jar of Estee Lauder night repair cream, it’s connected to Charlotte.

A medicine bottle, vial or syringe for the flu or COVID vaccine, or a semuglatide diabetic or weight loss drug, may have been designed and manufactured about 2 miles away from Carowinds.

Groninger makes thousands of fill and sealing machines for the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and consumer healthcare industries. The company is headquartered in Crailsheim, Germany, northeast of Stuttgart, and has its North American headquarters on South Lakes Drive in Charlotte.

“From morning til night, I guarantee you are touching a product that has been filled on our equipment,” groninger USA CEO Phillip Hauser said during a recent tour of the facility. The two-story white building with several windows contrasts with the one-store brick buildings of its neighbors.

Inside the all glass two-story foyer with a dramatic staircase, a lighted shelf inset in the wall showcases hundreds of products groninger has had a hand in making.

“Anything that’s liquid we fill,” Hauser said. “We built the equipment that fills the vials and syringes or bottles, whatever it might be.”

Inside groninger

In the back of the building the white-walled, clean warehouse space vibrates with the hums and clanks of machines with workers scattered through inspecting, running and changing out equipment.

Machines and shelving reach over one floor high. Materials are stored, then cut or lasered and turned in the manufacturing process.

“We make hundreds of thousands of different parts. It could be a stainless steel part, it could be an aluminum part, it could be some plastic parts, depending on what the customers’ needs are,” Hauser said. “Depending on what part you have to manufacture, it’s either going to be turned or it’s going to be milled.”

Walking through the facility, Hauser stops to talk with the employees and points out apprentices he knows by name.

He explains that groninger designs and makes the guides, needles and spacers inside the machines to create the fills for company’s like Pfizer that want a specific bottle shape. The guides and needles, and spacers, are all different to create the fills.

“What changes is the inside of the machine,” Hauser said. “All those change parts we design in the U.S. and we manufacture here.”

In the back of the warehouse and production space is groninger’s latest additions that’s part of a $2 million investment in equipment. The fully automated pallet milling system is making a “star wheel” for vials with a robot arm moving material into the machine.

The engineering and planning departments create the programs for the system that can run 24 hours a day.

“Our machines are basically a big conveyor belt,” Hauser said. “You have several different stations within this whole big machine, a washing machine, a filling machine.”

Once the parts are manufactured, they’re inspected in the quality lab and sent to assembly.

“You buy a little bottle of nail polish, but all the work that goes into the make product is incredible,” Hauser said.

The need for speed

Over the past two years, groninger has invested in machine tools to streamline production and eliminate backlogs. That includes the most recent investment in new equipment that started production in October.

”It really has allowed us to be significantly faster with go-to market products,” Hauser said. “We did see an influx in business because of much quicker lead times.”

And that’s crucial in groninger’s industry when a TikTok influencer can push a product that needs to be produced quickly, or pharmaceutical needs like vaccines and popular weightloss drugs are in demand.

“We need to be way faster than in the past,” Hauser said. “Now we have the whole quality and the whole supply chain under one roof.”

From cosmetics to COVID and weight loss drugs

What was 80% manufacturing for cosmetics is now 80% or more pharmaceutical, Hauser said. Traditionally, that included the flu vaccines. During the pandemic, COVID vaccines “was gangbuster.”

Groninger still makes fills for vaccines for Pfizer and other customers, including working with the federal government.

But the surge in weight loss drug popularity is creating another shift.

“Traditionally we did a whole lot more on the cosmetic side and that completely shifted into the pharmaceuticals now,” Hauser said.

Outgrowing its space

Groninger, which opened in Charlotte in 2010 with 20 employees, now has nearly 110 workers. The 35,000-square-foot L-shaped building houses manufacturing, warehousing and assembly, along with design engineers and administrative offices in the front.

In 2010, groninger did $19 million in sales. It now does up to $80 million “just in this location alone,” Hauser said.

“We’ve completely outgrown this facility,” he said. “There are plans for future growth.” Hauser declined to elaborate but said plans are in the works.

More about groninger

The nearly 45-year-old, family-owned company is based in Crailsheim, Germany. Groninger has about 1,500 at its three sites, which include Charlotte and Schnelldorf, Germany.

Groninger opened its US headquarters in 2007 in New Jersey, moving to Charlotte three years later. Charlotte serves customers in the U.S., Canada and since January 2024, Mexico.

Groninger also offers apprentice programs working with Central Piedmont Community College and UNC Charlotte, as well as high schools. Programs include field service technicians, purchasing, electrical, automation and mechanical engineering, logistics and quality assurance.

The value is about $175,000 scholarship with salary, training, education and travel, said Thomas Ray, apprenticeship team lead during the tour of groninger’s Charlotte facility. “There’s a guaranteed job at the end,” he said.

In a room just off the manufacturing floor sits another new machine where inspectors check the products for certification requirements.

“It gets more and more complex,” groninger head of quality Marcus Buffler said. “This is a machine that can keep up with all the customer requirements that we will have in the future.”

Hauser said there’s only room for two more machines in the factory. On the other side, the administrative offices and engineering department also are full with desks all occupied.

“There is no room to grow in here,” Hauser said.

This story was originally published December 30, 2024 at 6:06 AM.