Melitta
Line
- Thomas Bentz
- Stephan Bentz
The Melitta Bentz KG is a resident of the East Westphalian Minden group of companies. Under its umbrella products for daily household needs and for catering and large consumers are produced and marketed. Melitta is a family business that is now run by Thomas and Stephen Bentz, the grandsons of the company founder, Melitta Bentz, and Volker Stühmeier.
History
The company Melitta Melitta Bentz goes back to Dresden. It revolutionized the 1908 coffee making by providing them with a piece of filter paper and a perforated brass pot, which served as a filter that filtered the indigestible coffee grounds. From this idea arose with the coffee filters coffee filter and filter paper.
On 20 June 1908, the filter under the number 347 895 was registered with the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin in the utility role: the " coffee filter with curved downwards, with a drain hole LABEL FOR bottom and loose inset screens ".
Melitta Bentz, Hugo ran a hardware store since 1906. Together the couple founded in 1909 a commission business for household goods, which served the distribution of the 1908 registered coffee filter. First, very cramped and just then it grew rapidly.
In 1919 the son of Willy, 1929 in Minden then also the second son Horst in the business one, which from this point Bentz & called himself son.
1929 the company moved from Dresden to Minden, as in Dresden no adequate facilities for the fast growing company were available and there had been significant increases in business tax. The town of Minden was on the itinerary of the couple Bentz and offered good conditions for business expansion. They found an abandoned factory building and the city issued Melitta for the first five years the real taxes.
Here in Minden headed Horst Bentz, the Melitta filter works more than 50 years by 1929 until 1980.
During the period of National Socialism, the company supported the Nazis, Horst Bentz came a few months after the seizure of power of the Nazi Party and became member of the SS The operation was in 1941, 1942 and 1943 " National Socialist pattern mode". During this time the company grew, it was founded in Carlsbad and Düren branch plants.
After the war, Horst Bentz was arrested and subjected to a de-Nazification process. The Court's decision of 1948, he received loud Melitta source " complete freedom of movement and disposition of its assets " and could take over the lead at Melitta again without restriction. Other sources say that he was sentenced to a fine of RM 15,000 and was allowed to return only edition ( freezing of assets, employment as a laborer ) to Minden. The Minden " denazification Panel" classified Bentz in September 1949 as a "fellow traveler " (category 4). The work was to 1957 confiscated by the British occupying power, distributed operating at several facilities in the area.
In 1952, the two brothers parted. Willy Bentz took over from Henry Arthur Hoesch built by his grandfather Ludolf Matthias Hoesch paper mill in Düren- Friedenau Kreuzau, Horst Bentz the plant in Minden and expanded on here. In 1953, the Melitta porcelain factories established (from 1980 Friesland porcelain factory) in Varel and existed until 1991. During the 1960s, the Melitta porcelain, but also other products came to like sweets and coffee. Melitta produced the first manufacturer to filter finely ground and vacuum-packed coffee. In the 1960s, Melitta offices established in the U.S., Canada and Brazil. 1966 by Carl Ronning ( 1863-1949 ) founded Bremer large roasting Carl Ronning GmbH was taken over. In 1967 the company Melitta Granini founded by Heinz Schürmann. In 1965 the sales Melitta Wigomat, which was the first coffee machine, under his own name and abgewandeltem housing as Melitta " MA 120 "; The company was thus for the first time in the distribution of coffee machines operate.
In the late 1960s there were confrontations with the unions to the introduction of the 40 -hour week, which subsided only in the 1970s with the acquisition of collective agreements. The sons George, Thomas and Stephen Bentz took over the company in 1981 and carried out a restructuring. Individual parts of the company were legally separate and consolidated into one holding company. The extensive product range has been assigned to new brands. The Melitta brand was now only for the products related to coffee and coffee preparation. And it was a consolidation process takes, the did not spare the workers wait: goods in the late 1980s still 7,300 employees, so there were still about 5,900 in 1993.
1995 Vacuum Cleaner Bags manufacturer West Clean AB in Lilla Edet, Sweden was acquired, the production in 2000 but set. 1999, the Melitta Group generated consolidated worldwide revenues of DM 2.125 billion ( 1.087 billion euros ), of which DM 1.716 billion (877 million euros ) in the EU and DM 1.206 billion (617 million euros ) in domestic. 2010 slightly more than 3,500 employees worldwide working at Melitta.
On June 21, 2010, the Federal Cartel Office due to a strengthening of the sole dominant position on the market for vacuum cleaner bag the merger of the Bentz Beteiligungs KG or any of its subsidiaries with the Belgian Airflo Europe NV and the acquisition of shares and its attendant privileges to be founded on the joint venture by partners and / or companies in the Schultink group to which the Airflo heard prohibited.
Today's development of the company
The largest division within the Melitta Group is Melitta Household Products Europe, the products for coffee preparation (for example, filter paper, coffee machines ) under the brand Melitta, and cleaning household products like vacuum cleaners and garbage bags (brand Swirl ) and products for the tea (brand Cilia ) manufactures and distributes.
Responsible for the coffee shop in Germany is another part of the group Melitta Coffee Europe with headquarters in Bremen. Melitta Coffee Europe produces and sells filter coffee, fully automatic coffee, coffee and instant cappuccino mainly for the German market.
Business with budget films is conducted since 1996 as a joint venture Cofresco Frischhalteprodukte Europe with SC Johnson & Son. Melitta has a 65 % stake in the company. Well-known brands are Toppits, mobile phone bag, Albal and Glad.
Overseas Melitta with companies in Brazil, North and South America and Asia operates.
A total of nearly 50 companies with more than 3,000 employees are united under the umbrella of the corporate group. The group is an international brand -name companies. The total turnover of over 1.3 billion euros.
Among the subsidiaries of the Melitta Group ( Melitta Bentz KG partly for, partly to Bentz Beteiligungs KG ) include the PVG paper processing GmbH in Spengemann, Wolf GmbH in Vlotho / Exter and Delphy SA in Courbevoie, France.
Brands
Well-known brands of Melitta are:
Cilia
Cofresco
Codiac
Gameo
Toppits
Swirl
Criticism
In December 2009, the Federal Cartel Office imposed antitrust violations against, among others, Melitta Kaffee GmbH Bremen a fine. Tchibo, Dallmayr and Kraft Foods belonged to this coffee cartel; latter company used the so-called bonus scheme in order to avoid a penalty.
In June 2010, the German Coffee Association Hamburg was accused by the Federal Cartel Office to have promoted a cartel of coffee company with a press release in February 2005, which is why a fine of up to € 90,000 was imposed. Among the participating coffee roasters included in addition to the company Kraft Foods Away from home service (Bremen), Tchibo (Hamburg), Luigi Lavazza Germany (Frankfurt), Seeberger, Segafredo Zanetti Germany (Munich), Gebr Westhoff (Bremen), and JJ Darboven (Hamburg ) also Melitta system Service. The latter two companies, the fines were reduced because of her cooperation in the investigation of the allegations.
In October 2011, a renewed participation of the undertaking in a cartel was detected. The cartel lasted from the next Melitta coffee maker Kruger and Kraft Foods Germany. The latter two companies were ordered to pay a fine in the amount of nine million euros. The cartel had agreed at the turn of 2007/2008 in instant cappuccino a price increase per pack accounted for an increase of 20 to 40 cents. Since the penalty proceedings have been initiated at the request of Melitta Kaffee GmbH, which thus acted as a witness, no fine was issued against them.