Fein-Elast

We solve our customers’ challenges with know-how, innovation and passion.

Management board

The Fein-Elast management team

Only those who know the goal

will find a way.

Facts & Figures

2021

Founded

Linear metres of yarn daily

Employees

History

How it all started

In 1966, the Vorarlberg entrepreneur Wilhelm Grabher took a stake in the Werner Blatter OHG corsetry factory in Lustenau. In the same year, the joint company Blatter & Grabher OHG was founded, consisting of five winding machines and several circular knitting machines. At that time, the company employed 25 people and supplied the surrounding region. The triumph of elastic tights with the fibre LYCRA® in finer yarn counts revitalised the fashion scene. The demand for covered yarns increased rapidly, so that in 1973 it became necessary to move to a new building. After Wilhelm Grabher took over the entire company, the company name was changed to Fein-Elast Umwindewerk GmbH, based in Lustenau/Austria.

Growth and modernisation

The strong business sense of the managing directors Wilhelm Kurt Grabher and Reinhart Schneider allowed the company to grow and expand. As early as 1976, the company Fein-Elast Grabher AG was founded with headquarters in Diepoldsau, Switzerland. In the following years, additional locations were established and expanded in Austria and Switzerland. New technologies such as air interlacing and specialities such as Knit-de-Knit processes for the production of fancy yarns for striking designs were added. After the death of Wilhelm Grabher in 1986, the company passed into the equal ownership of the Grabher and Schneider families and is now run by the third generation.

Expansion abroad

For strategic reasons, Fein-Elast Umspinnwerk GmbH was established in 1991 in Zeulenroda, Thuringia, Germany, the first production facility in the EU. At the time, this was an essential step towards ensuring the Fein-Elast Group’s competitiveness in the European market. In this new company, the product range was decisively expanded with Hamel Elasto Twist machines and an additional market segment was served with weaving. Against the background of being able to serve the Eastern European market more intensively and more closely to the customer, investments were made in the Estonian location in 1994. Fein-Elast Estonia OÜ is now our largest production site for fine hosiery yarns. Another milestone in the history of the company was the construction of the spinning mill in Triebes, Germany in 1999. With the registered trademarks cotton star® and elasto star®, customers are offered the finest Corespun and Sirospun qualities for the highest textile demands.

Restructuring in the holding

In order to further strengthen the company’s presence on the market, on 30.07.2002 the individual companies were merged into Fein-Elast Holding AG, based in Lustenau, Austria. The aim of this restructuring was to better coordinate the activities of the business units, to promote team-oriented action among the employees and to make better use of synergy effects within the group. Today, the family-owned company with its 250 employees and an annual turnover of 38 million euros can proudly look back on an uninterrupted, dynamic expansion with an increasingly international reputation.

Sustainability

Committed to the region and the people

In both pre-consumer and post-consumer standards, we pay very close attention to how we can use resources sparingly or save them on the one hand while protecting the environment on the other. For example, we process yarns made from recycled fishing nets or PET bottles, and we produce compostable and biodegradable yarns. We generate electricity for our production via our own PV systems and even operate our own hydroelectric power plant – info at kwsb.ch – with which we generate 3 million kilowatt hours of green electricity annually. And of course, the waste heat generated in production is recovered and used as heating energy. We have our commitment to the environment regularly checked and documented with certificates such as that of the Energy Agency for Industry, the Green Invest Project and certified energy management systems according to DIN ISO 50001.

Lichtensteig city bridge power plant

The environment says thank you.

We use the energy we produce in our own hydroelectric power plant. This is sustainability in action. Around 10 years ago, we set an important course for the future energy supply of the Fein-Elast Group. We celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony for the Stadtbrücke power plant in Lichtensteig (kwsb.ch), which went on the grid in 2013. With this important step, we not only created a commitment to regional electricity production from natural resources – we also breathed new life into an old industrial site that was home to a spinning factory as early as 1816. Today, we produce around 3 million kilowatt hours of clean electricity annually at the Stadtbrücke power plant. In addition, photovoltaic systems in Lustenau and Diepoldsau also contribute to the production of sustainable energy.

Mission Statement

Our mission

We create the conditions for the comfort and function of modern textiles with our highly functional yarns and twisted yarns. Highest quality standards, partnership relations with our customers and suppliers as well as reliability in service are basic principles, thanks to which we are continuously expanding our market-leading position.

Our vision

As a leading international manufacturer of elastic and non-elastic yarns and twisted yarns, we support our customers in solving their product-specific challenges. We are an innovation driver and thought leader when it comes to the new or further development of functional, aesthetic or flexible fabrics based on our yarns and twisted yarns.

							Each of our yarns is a highly functional construction. It is only in the joint interaction of all properties that solutions for different requirements are created, all of which are extraordinary and unique in their effect.						

Philosophy

Attractive

Our company motto “Attractive in Every Sense” applies to our product range of elastic and non-elastic combination yarns as well as to our relationship with our customers. We want to be attractive to them through performance, competence and commitment.

High quality

Highest quality standards, partnership relations with our customers and suppliers as well as reliability in service are basic principles, thanks to which we are continuously expanding our market-leading position.

Functional

With our elastic yarns, we create the conditions for the comfort and functionality of your clothing and thus for your freedom of movement and well-being. We are happy if we can develop a good relationship after getting to know each other.

							“Over the past decades, we have continuously expanded our capabilities so that we can be an indispensable and valuable partner for our customers”.						

Bernd Grabher
Managing Director

Certificates

The quality of our products is continuously certified by recognised bodies. If you need the certificates in print quality, please request them from your supplier.