Spotlight the Site: a visit to Stahl Spain

Did you know that Stahl's specialty coatings and treatments are produced in 17 manufacturing sites worldwide? In this article, our site manager gives us a look inside our Spanish location, the team culture and how they contribute to Stahl's purpose.

Can you tell us where your site is located and what it specialises in?  
Our site is located in Parets, close to Barcelona in the north-east of Spain. We produce a wide range of chemicals for all Stahl business lines, from high-solids polyurethanes, acrylics and hybrids, to solvent or water-borne solutions. 

How does the work done at your site contribute to the Stahl’s overall operations and objectives?  
Parets is not only an important European production hub, but also a distribution centre that delivers our products all over the world. Furthermore, we host three Centres of Excellence and one R&D Centre, together with the EMEA Indirect Procurement Group and a significant number of Global Directors. Together, we make Parets an important centre for Stahl to reach its goals. 

Time for some figures. How many Stahl colleagues work at your site? When did Stahl open the site? Any fun facts?  
Currently, there are 206 colleagues working at our site from 14 different nationalities, and 35% are women. We have a strong history in Parets: the site started production in 1963, and in 2017 our distribution centre started their operations in Les Franqueses del Vallés, delivering our products all over the world. 

What are the strengths of your site’s culture and atmosphere? What do you do to develop team spirit and a sense of community across the site? What holidays do you celebrate with the whole site/location?  
We have a very friendly and warm atmosphere with a strong team spirit; it's immediately apparent to people who visit us. We organise a variety of activities throughout the year for Stahl Parets colleagues, such as the Family Day, sports tournaments, trekking, cooperation with different social initiatives and the traditional Christmas Party  

We also commemorate Saint George's Day on 23 April. This day, which celebrated across the Catalonia region, is a tradition to gift a book and a rose to your loved ones. In 2023, we celebrated at our site with the help of PRODIS, an association that helps with the integration of people with mental health issues, who help us prepare roses for the colleagues. 

In 2023, Stahl launched its new purpose, Touching lives, for a better world. How does your site demonstrate the purpose in its work and culture?  
In addition to the roses for Saint George's Day, we cooperate regularly with PRODIS. The organisation helps prepare gifts for employees at Christmas, and we have also visited them for a day to better understand their world. Apart from that, we regularly participate in raising funds for different causes like the Children’s Hospital of Barcelona, blood donation or toy collections for various NGOs. 

We also collaborate with Binomis L' Heura, a labour inclusion service that helps people with functional disabilities to join the labour market through Supported Work, a methodology focused on the person with special needs, so that they can access, maintain and promote themselves within a company and in the labour market.  

Like Stahl, Binomis promotes non-discrimination, respect, diversity and recognition of individual needs. At Stahl Iberica, we already have a Binomis colleague on our staff. 

Keep up the great work, team Parets! We hope you enjoyed these insights into Stahl Spain as much as we did. Our global presence enables us to provide local service, staying up to date with developments in your market region and segment.