The company is our whole life!
Köhler Kalk, a lime plant founded in 1938 and situated in Germany’s heartland, calcines the niche product dolomitic limestone. Just last year the company commissioned a new parallel-flow regenerative (PFR) shaft kiln from QualiCal. We spoke with Christian Köhler, who joined the company with the launch of planning work for the new building project in 2013 and has been managing the company together with his father Norbert Köhler ever since. For a small enterprise with 18 employees, this € 9 million investment is quite a major achievement.
CHRISTIAN KÖHLER: At the time I joined the company in 2013, we were facing the question of whether to quit or invest. With our old standard shaft kiln, we were up to our limits in terms of environmental standards and quality requirements. We would have had to upgrade the kiln in 2017, anyway, because it was no longer able to satisfy Germany’s air quality control code TA-Luft under normal operating conditions.
Since we had gained approval for opening a new quarry that year, i.e., in 2013, we decided to install a new...
