A success story written over nearly 100 years – also with cement and precast elements

The Thomas Group is one of the largest medium-sized family-run companies in the building materials sector in Germany. It offers its customers precast elements, ready-mixed concrete and cement for the domestic and foreign markets.

The company was founded in 1930 by Emil Thomas in the Hunsrück region in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It early developed into a regional road construction and civil engineering company with a workforce of around 100. In 1978, the company founder had to give up the responsibility of the company due to health issues, and his son, Eckhardt Thomas, at that time still at university, took over. He is leading the company group to this day and developed it further which now, with a workforce of over 1,500 in more than 40 locations in Germany, Denmark, Poland and the Netherlands, operates in sectors ranging from limestone quarries to construction sites.

In the cement sector, Thomas is one of the few remaining medium-sized family-owned companies alongside large corporations, with the associated advantages. The latest additions to Thomas Zement are the Karsdorf plant, which was once one of the largest cement plants in Europe and the Mahlwerk Sötenich mill in the Eifel region, (a mountainous area in the western part of Germany,) which is scheduled to resume operations in 2026.

In the area of precast elements, the Group, under Thomas Betonbauteile, offers semi- and fully precast elements for residential, commercial and industrial building. These elements are manufactured in Germany and Poland for construction companies, architects, planners and builders for construction projects of any size.

The largest such production plant of concrete components, Thomas Betonbauteile, is located in Löbnitz an der Linde in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. This location, founded in 1993, comprises a total of 10 halls and belongs, since 2014, to the Thomas Group. The entire Thomas Betonbauteile product range is manufactured here under the management of Simone Leopold, which ranges from semi- and fully precast elements for residential buildings (e.g., slab elements and wall elements, solid floor slabs and solid walls, balconies and stairs) to precast elements for industrial construction (including columns, beams and TT floor slabs of prestressed and non-prestressed concrete).

Trust in building with cement-bound construction materials

As a manufacturer of concrete and cement, Thomas believes in cement-bound construction materials. However, building with precast elements is not a status quo, despite serial predictability and efficiency on the construction site – among other reasons, because of the prevailing opinion that concrete is not sustainable. At Thomas, it is believed that cement will ultimately be developed so as to be free of CO₂. But that will, however, take some time until a technology for separation of CO₂ will actually exist and be easy to use. Until that time, precast elements themselves must inherently become more sustainable. At Thomas Betonbauteile, various approaches are used towards this objective. One of them involves the development of new special concrete products that, owing to unique innovative development, have a reduced CO₂ balance. The first of these special concrete products is Concap, the first serial-produced vaulted concrete ceiling.

Concap was originally based on an idea conceived by Prof. Mike Schlaich, and realized by a multi-functional team with the consulting engineers Schlaich Bergermann Partner (sbp) and Thomas Betonbauteile. Concap is elegant and efficient, is space-saving and intelligent, tested and easy to implement and suitable for use on circular systems. The floor system saves 55% of CO₂ emissions compared to a conventional flat floor, with savings of approx. 60 % of structural concrete. Concap is not only especially efficient and sustainable, but it also creates a roomy spatial impression by its arched soffit. Owing to the various module sizes and widths, for which typed structural engineering is available, the floor system is suitable for use both in office and residential buildings as well as in industrial and commercial structures. The standard element, at its thinnest point, has a thickness of only 6 cm and nevertheless still satisfies all technical requirements regarding floor loads, sound protection, fire protection and user comfort. As high-quality precast elements in architectural concrete quality, Concap is topped with readily available granular recycling material at the construction site. More information is available at www.con-cap.de.

  In addition to the development of new special products, Thomas Betonbauteile is working on ways to offer existing semi-precast element concepts with resource-reduced, climate-efficient and intelligent properties. This new product line initially contains an Eco Slab, a climate floor slab, a thermo floor slaband a thermo wall – all developed in partnership with the company Green Code, a subsidiary of Progress located in Brixen, South Tyrol (more information at www.thomas-gruppe.de).

The existing (standard) products of Thomas Betonbauteile are also continuously being optimized: for example, by adjusting the concrete mix formulas, by use of clinker-reduced cements and by reduction of the energy used in production. All these efforts to make the Group’s efforts more sustainable are paying off. CO₂ emission per ton of product has been reduced, since 2020, by 24 % for all available Thomas EPD product/plant combinations. By now, more than ten Thomas plants have been CSC-certified – three of which have been awarded the Platinum Certificate.

With passion into a secure future

The Thomas Group began as a small road construction company in the Hunsrück region in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Today, it is a corporate group that looks to the future, even in difficult times, and which together with its entire team works with passionate enthusiasm on contributing to making tomorrow’s building with cement-bound construction materials more sustainable.

The Thomas Group will for the first time present its product innovations and services, for all visitors to see at close range: at Messe BAU in Munich from 13 to 17 January 2025 in Hall A1, Stand 111.