Medela company puts major building project in neighbouring canton on hold

Two years ago the Baar-based Medela medical products company announced that it had acquired land in Perlen in the canton of Lucerne for the site of a CHF 100 million new production plant. The company had sought to find an appropriate site of sufficient size in Zug, but failed to do so.
 
Now the company has announced it is postponing its plans to move to this 50,000 square-metre site in the municipality of Buchrain, while holding on to the land. Production is currently carried out in four sites in Baar and Steinhausen.
 
The company, which is best known for its manufacture of breast pumps, is run by the Swedish Larsson family and employs some 340 staff here in Switzerland. 95% of its products are exported, with its main markets being the USA, Europe and Asia, though its products are sold in some hundred countries.
 
Might the decision to postpone the move to this site in the canton of Lucerne be related to the announcement back in January that the Swiss National Bank was no longer prepared to hold the Swiss franc at a fixed rate exchange with the euro? Might Medela be considering moving production, or at least part of it, abroad? According to company spokesman Martin Elbel, the answer to both questions is definitely not, and he insists production will remain in Switzerland. It was actually Olle Larsson, the father of the current chairman of the board Martin Larsson, who set up the company in Zug in 1961.
 
At present the company is working out how to streamline its procedures such as purchasing the raw materials needed for production, warehousing and export logistics. “It is a very complex matter,” explained Elbel. “We need to do this if we are to maintain production in Switzerland yet still be able to export at competitive prices.”
As to when the company might eventually move to Perlen, Elbel said it would not be for at least another four years.
 
The Larsson-Rosenquist Family Foundation made headline news recently after it announced it was to finance CHF 20 million for the setting up a Chair of Human Lactation at the University of Zurich.