Pon.Bike to open Lithuania factory and bolster supply chain

Construction of the Pon.Bike factory in Lithuania is now underway in the Kėdainiai Free Economic Zone (FEZ), with the factory scheduled to begin operation in summer 2024.

The bicycle manufacturer is planning to create 300 new jobs in Lithuania by the time the factory opens, later doubling this number to 600 employees. Hundreds of thousands of bikes will be assembled and prepared in the factory, for Gazelle, Kalkhoff, Focus and Urban Arrow. In these early stages of construction, a symbolic time capsule was buried in the foundations of the 40,000 square metre building.

The construction was launched by the Minister of Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania, Aušrinė Armonaitė, together with the Vice President for Operations at Pon.Bike, Janco van der Heiden, and other guests.

According to Janco van der Heiden, this factory will become an important business engine for the Kėdainiai region, where hundreds of thousands of high-quality bicycles will be assembled and prepared by Lithuanians, making Lithuania famous in this field throughout Europe and the world.

Pon.Bike’s Vice President for Operations said: “Our strategy is to produce bicycles in a site that is close to our customers, and Europe is one of our biggest and fastest-growing markets. The Kėdainiai factory is proof of this. By strengthening manufacturing capacity in Europe, we are not only creating new jobs, but also obtaining more control over our supply chain. In the end, this will also benefit our customers.”

Aušrinė Armonaitė, Minister of Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania added: “The Ministry of Economy and Innovation has granted the Pon.Bike factory in Kėdainiai the status of a major investment project. This makes it much easier for new investors to settle in Lithuania. We continue to work to ensure that conditions are right for new manufacturing facilities to be built and new jobs created.”

300 new jobs next year

This eighth, and most modern Pon.Bike factory in the world is designed to achieve the A++ energy class, with a 10,000 square metre rooftop solar power plant supplying electricity to the production lines. The company also has factories operating in the Netherlands, Germany, the USA and Brazil.

While the construction work is underway, Pon.Bike will recruit around 30 Lithuanian employees for the roles of managers and team leaders but the major recruitment phase will start early next year. By the end of the third quarter of 2024, the company will employ around 300 people in bicycle assembly, frame painting and warehouse logistics roles.

Janco van der Heiden said: “We recently opened a similar factory in Germany, completely based on our successful business set up, and we are happy and proud to bring this same set up to Lithuania, so the new factory will benefit from our knowledge and experience to be a safe and inspiring place for our new Lithuanian colleagues to work. In addition, we firmly believe in the benefits of continuous training and development, which leads to personal growth and new career opportunities.”

Modern factory

Once the production starts, the three-storey building in Kėdainiai will house bicycle assembly and painting workshops, a warehouse and administrative premises. When fully operational, it will produce up to 450,000 bicycles per year.

The Kėdainiai factory will not only see bicycles assembled for Gazelle, Kalkhoff, Focus and Urban Arrow, in addition, production of electric bicycles is planned to meet future market requirements. Pon.Bike expects that by 2030, the number of electric bicycles on the streets will be similar to the number of conventional bicycles.