Bertold Schmid, a textile engineer, founded Cherotan Fibres in Aachen, Germany, in 1975. He worked for Enka Glanzstoff, the largest synthetic fiber producer in Europe, from 1965 to 1972
Enka had been simply acquiring warehouse space to store its off-spec material; by the mid-1970s, the company likely had tens of thousands of tons of waste. Storing it was getting expensive.
Enka had been looking for new end uses for post-industrial waste since the 1960s, and Bertold was entrusted with the task of searching for and, if possible, finding ways to reuse raw materials discarded in the company’s plants.
Later, against the tide of a global oil crisis and recession, Bertold bought two draw frames from Phillips Fibers in the United States who had tried unsuccessfully to process post-industrial waste. Bertold was able to draw on his experience and modify the machines to make them work. He founded Cherotan and began to draw, crimp, and cut polyester. It was called “upcycling.”
Over the years, Cherotan grew, adding facilities in Belgium, the Netherlands, and two in Italy. The volume of available raw materials was high, and it was growing.
In 1978, Cherotan moved to a new location on Eisenbahnweg in Aachen and doubled production. Cherotan also began selling some of the Nylon 66 fallout it was getting from Enka Glanzstoff to customers in Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, and the United States. It wasn’t long before Cherotan realized all of that Nylon 66 was ending up with Barnet.
“I’m not sure whether we found Barnet, or they found us,” said Bertold’s son, Notker Schmid, who joined the company in 1985. “We met and started selling directly to them. That’s how it started. Bill Barnet and Bill McCrary visited us, and Bill Barnet started the meeting by saying, ‘Hey, Bertold, why don’t you buy Barnet?’ And Bertold smiled and said, ‘Well, that might be a little too much for me to handle, but would you be interested in buying us?’
Bertold said selling Cherotan to Barnet in October 1990 was not a difficult decision; it was something that needed to happen for the security of his sixty employees. The companies were similar in what they did.
Barnet kept the name Cherotan for several years after the acquisition since it was a known player in the European market. Cherotan eventually became Barnet Europe in 1995.
