Stollwerck GmbH is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 food company known for the production of chocolate

Chocolate

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

. In 1998 it acquired Sarotti

Sarotti

Sarotti is a German chocolate brand owned by Stollwerck GmbH since 1998.-History:In 1868 Hugo Hoffmann opened a company to produce sweets. The location of this shop was in Mohrenstraße 10 in Berlin....

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In 2002 it was bought by the Barry Callebaut

Barry Callebaut

Barry Callebaut is the world's largest chocolate manufacturer.It was created in 1996 through the merging of the Belgian chocolate producer Callebaut and the French company Cacao Barry. It is currently based in Zurich, Switzerland, and operates in 26 countries worldwide...

 AG, who sold it in 2011 to the Baronie Groep in Veurne

Veurne

Veurne is a city and municipality in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the town of Veurne proper and the settlements of Avekapelle, Booitshoeke, Bulskamp, De Moeren, Eggewaartskapelle, Houtem, Steenkerke, Vinkem, Wulveringem, and Zoutenaaie.-Origins in the 15th...

, Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

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History

In 1839 Franz Stollwerck opened a cough drop production plant in Cologne. In 1860, the production of chocolate , marzipan and Printen was started.

After the death of Franz Stollwerck in 1876, his five sons took over the management of the company and expanded it in 1902 into a multinational corporation with plants in Europe and America.

As early as 1871 the company Gebruder Stollwerck was founded and the industrialization of chocolate production started. In particular, the second youngest of the brothers, Ludwig Stollwerck took technical developments with an open mind. In 1887 Stollwerck introduced the first machines. Six years later, in 1893 Stollwerck sold 15,000 chocolates.

Gebruder Stollwerck started exporting their products heavily. Subsidiaries were formed in England, Belgium and Austria-Hungary. In the USA Stollwerck and the German businessman John Volkmann founded in 1894 as the company Volkmann, Stollwerck & Co. , in New York production of Stollwerck built a machine. Alone on New York stations were in the early 1890s, over 4,000 of its machines.

Also in 1895 beginning Kinematographengeschäft Stollwerck was acting leader. Only in 1914, with the beginning of World War I the rapid rise of the Stollwerck ended.

In 1927 Karl Stollwerck built the Stollwerck Mausoleum in Upper Bavaria.

Due to the world economic crisis in 1930, the second world war and the associated damage to plants in Germany, expropriation abroad as well as various bad investments Stollwerck ran into financial difficulties. In 1972 Hans Imhoff took over the company. Under his leadership Stollwerck was one of the largest chocolate manufacturer with plants in Germany and abroad and in the next 30 years took on long-established brands such as Sarotti.

After the fall of the wall Stollwerck engaged as the first chocolate makers in the former East Germany and took over the Thuringian Chocolate Factory GmbH in Saalfeld, which was with the brand Rotstern the biggest chocolate factory in the GDR.

In Hungary after the company opened a factory in Székesfehérvár in 1995 it became the leader in the chocolate market. In Poland and Russia Stollwerck is similarly successful.

In 1993, Hans Imhoff, the CEO of Stollwerk, founded the DM 53 million Imhoff-Stollwerk chocolate museum in Rheinauhafen

Rheinauhafen

The Rheinauhafen is a urban regeneration project in Cologne, Germany, located along the River Rhine between the Südbrücke and Severinsbrücke , just south of the inner city's historic old town.The project is set around the actual Rheinauhafen, a formerly commercial harbour developed during the...

, Cologne to exhibit many items from the Stollwerck history.