“Everyone said: It can’t be done! Then someone came along who didn’t know that, and simply did it.” – Rarely has this saying fit better than in this true story, told by Jan Christansen, CEO of Diersch It’s about the beginnings of the Corona pandemic, our desire to contribute to fighting the pandemic, and ultimately about the courage to take shortcuts. About the courage to spontaneously initiate a project, overcome resistance, and find solutions together.
Our Spontaneity Was Put to the Test
It wasn’t long ago that disinfectant was suddenly sought after like liquid gold. One of our shareholders, Bernd Karstedt, called me and asked if we could quickly produce disinfectant liquids in one of our chemical companies. I had to say no – unfortunately. Because I had already spoken with our chemical subsidiaries ACL, LEVACO, and EstiChem and received the same answer from all of them: It’s not possible. And there were two good reasons for this:
- Special permits are required to process the raw materials necessary for disinfectants. This is due, for example, to the high flammability of the raw materials. These permits were not available.
- The most important raw material, medical ethanol, was just as scarce as the end product.
It seemed: This project was over before even a single liter of disinfectant was produced.
The Saving Idea: Ask a Family Member!
At the last moment, I had an idea: Didn’t our DS-Mineralöl have considerable quantities of bio-ethanol for blending into fuels? So I called my colleague Ian Petri (CEO DS-Mineralöl), who immediately agreed: “Yes, we have ethanol, you can have it from us by the tanker load.” – The game was on again! So I called our chemical subsidiaries once more, full of hope and with 30,000 liters of bio-ethanol in my backpack. But the answer remained “No” – the legal regulations don’t allow it.
And then something happened that I hadn’t expected. Our young start-up company SCS Holding with its subsidiary ELAPRO contacted us, desperately seeking ethanol. SCS actually produces liquid plastic used for sealing (flat) roofs and balconies. The company produces in its own production hall in Bitterfeld and thus had production capacities that they could quickly and flexibly repurpose. Now they wanted to switch to disinfection products at short notice. The managing director of SCS, Gerrit Christiansen, said:
As ELAPRO, we immediately seized the opportunity and got a foot in the door in the disinfectant business right at the beginning of the Corona crisis.
The Mission “Disinfectant against Corona” Was Underway
As the DS Group, our experience in the field of disinfectants was still limited. A spontaneous email to our shareholders at Diersch and Schröder led us in the right direction. Jan Christiansen replied: “Please talk to Johannes von Cossel from ACL again.” Johannes von Cossel immediately showed his willingness to cooperate and supported us in making this business possible by providing us with various information and basic requirements for a supply:
- How should tank trucks be unloaded?
- How long does unloading typically take?
- Where does the ethanol price usually stand in the market?
In addition to organizing a reliable freight forwarder, he referred us further – this time back to DS-Mineralöl. At this point, we were definitely talking about a real DS family project. Here, a big thank you goes to Mr. Stefan Rickborn. He took care of everything, handling the entire process around the procurement of bio-ethanol.
From one Tank Truck with about 30,000 Liters of Bio-Ethanol, it Quickly Became Several Tank Trucks per Week
DS-Mineralöl additionally supported us by extending the actual payment target for the first deliveries by a factor of 2.5. This allowed us to pre-finance other mandatory investments. With the Lynatox, we were able to involve another DS subsidiary that supported us in sales, as customer target groups overlapped and Lynatox already had the appropriate contacts. All DS family members achieved something together that none could have accomplished alone. Everyone benefited from this – “Better together” in its purest form!
A particularly positive experience in switching to disinfectants was, in addition to above-average product sales, the collaboration with the entire DS family.
