Image from Novinky.cz
Image from Novinky.cz

The company Hartmann-Rico, a maker of medical aids and supplies belonging to Germany's Hartmann group, announced on 15 October 2026 that it will close its plant in Chvalkovice in the Náchod area at the end of November 2027. The plant employs 280 people, and another eight work in the Sanicare sheltered workshop, which will also close. About half of the employees are foreigners.[1][2]

Reasons

The company justified the closure by pressure to cut production costs, partly because of strong price competition from manufacturers in countries outside the European Union. According to it, healthcare facilities increasingly buy through long-term tenders with fixed prices, while the costs of energy, raw materials and labour are rising. The company's spokesman Martin Bořil said that, after evaluating alternatives, the group concluded that the current production model in Chvalkovice cannot provide a long-term sustainable economic basis.[1]

Impacts and plans

Hartmann-Rico wants to consolidate production at its main plant in Veverská Bítýška in the Brno area, which employs about 900 people and will remain the company's only production site in Czechia. Roughly half of the Chvalkovice plant's output is to be made there, and the company intends to transfer the rest to external manufacturing partners in Asia. A possible transfer of some employees to Veverská Bítýška is, according to Bořil, to concern mainly foreign workers. The company has not yet decided on the future of the site.[1]

In March 2026 the company ended production at its plant in Havlíčkův Brod, where about 200 people worked, for similar reasons.[1][2] The Chvalkovice factory was founded as a textile mill in 1892, medical goods have been made in it since the 1950s, and it now produces disposable surgical instruments and procedure kits.[1] In the Náchod area at the end of September 2026, according to the Labour Office of the Czech Republic, 3,445 people were unemployed, and the unemployment rate was 4.8 per cent.[1]

Chronology

  • — The company Hartmann-Rico announced that it will close its plant in Chvalkovice in the Náchod District in November 2027. ČTK / České noviny Novinky.cz

Sources

  1. ČTK / České noviny — 15 October 2026
  2. Novinky.cz — 15 October 2026