Aachen Imperial Fountain

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Aachen thermal water "Kaiserbrunnen" public limited company

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1884
resolution December 31, 2009
Seat Aachen , Germany
management Manfred Fuchs
Number of employees 30th
Branch Mineral water manufacturer
Status: July 2, 2010

Kaiserbrunnen bottles from 1880 (Postcard 1910: Elisenbrunnen)
Company sales presentation, 1918

Aachener Kaiserbrunnen was the common short name of the Aachener Thermalwasser Kaiserbrunnen Aktiengesellschaft based in Bad Aachen , which was already known to the Romans due to the hottest springs in Central Europe. The stock corporation existed from 1884 to 2009 and had the business purpose of extracting and selling Aachen thermal water as well as the production of lemonades and similar drinks. The company was affiliated with the Association of German Mineral Wells.

history

The Aachener Thermalwasser Kaiserbrunnen Aktiengesellschaft emerged on June 18, 1884 from an original company that had existed in Hamburg since April 1818 . Only the water is already as was utilized initially Kaiserquelle known Aachen thermal source in the city center. The water from the Kaiserquelle also supplies the drinking fountains of the Elisenbrunnen , which was built between 1822 and 1827 .

On July 17, 1900, the owner of the Aachener Kaiserbrunnen, a Hamburg shipowner , relocated the company's headquarters to Aachen. At that time the mineral water was exported to all five continents. It was also served to passengers on all Hapag and Norddeutscher Lloyd ships. The company logo used was also created at this time. A ship's steward in white livery , who served the passengers with Kaiserbrunnen, impressed the then owner of the mineral well with his friendliness and sympathy so much that he had the image of the steward impressively printed as a trademark on all labels and business letters. This company logo was used unchanged until the end.

Export restrictions after the First World War and the complete destruction of the company in the Second World War required a complete fresh start and painstaking reconstruction of the company after 1945. On July 10, 2009, the company announced that the shareholders' meeting had decided to close the company for the 31st due to the highly competitive market December 2009 to close. This can only be averted if a buyer can be found for the company. Since no buyer was found, the company stopped production at the end of 2009.

society

The shareholders of the unlisted stock corporation were:

  • Gisela Blädel
  • Helgard Bruhns
  • Helmut Bünger
  • Wiga Bünger
  • Winfried Bünger
  • Gerlind Goetz

Hans-Günter Radermacher had been the managing director of the AG since 1984. MEPHISTO-Getränke GmbH and Thermes-Brunnen GmbH , both also based in Aachen, were subsidiaries .

Spring water

The water from the Kaiserquelle, which is used for processing and bottling, is bound to Upper Devonian reef limestones , which in the urban area of ​​Aachen spread out in two spring limestone courses on the surface of the earth. The artesian outflowing Kaiserquelle is one of the thermal springs of the Aachen spring limestone range with the highest density. The mineralized spring water is formed from the seepage of rainwater on the northern edge of the High Fens . When it passes through the subsoil down to a depth of 2500 meters, the rainwater, which was originally low in minerals, loosens minerals from the surrounding rock layers and takes on temperatures of up to 125 ° C in accordance with the geothermal gradient in the depths. The mineral water rises along large tectonic thrust orbits on crevices and fissures in the limestone and flows out at the surface at a temperature of 52 ° C. The fluoride - and sulfur - containing sodium - chloride - hydrogen carbonate thermal waters have a Holocene age, which means that the passage through the underground took several thousand to around 10,000 years. Small amounts of non-mineralized surface water are added to the thermal deep water in the Aachen springs . According to the manufacturer, the mineral water of the Kaiserbrunnen was one of the mineral waters bottled in Germany with the highest mineral and salt contents. The spring water, which contains a lot of hydrogen sulfide , was desulfurized before bottling. Its mineral components are

Another source used to produce mineral water was the so-called "Granus spring", which, unlike the Kaiser spring, was less mineralized. The calcium-rich mineral water from the "Granus spring" came from a borehole near the bottling plant and was pumped from a depth of 120 meters at a temperature of 12 ° C. The water from the "Granus spring" formed the basis for the low-mineralized mineral water and all of the company's soft drinks. The strongly mineralized thermal water of the Mephisto spring was bottled by a subsidiary of Kaiserbrunnen AG from the spring of the same name in the Frankenberg district until the end of 2009 . It was slightly more mineralized than the mineral water of the Kaiserbrunnen.

Brands

Registered brand names for Aachener Thermalwasser Kaiserbrunnen Aktiengesellschaft were:

  • Kaiserbrunnen
  • Granus
  • Emperor Pearl
  • St. Quirinus medicinal water
  • Chapel
  • Zisina

distribution

Since the company itself only had one glass bottle filling system, the PET bottles also offered in the trade were made to order at Auberg-Quelle in Wagenfeld and Haaner Felsenquelle . All products were exported beyond North Rhine-Westphalia to Belgium and the Netherlands . Total sales in 2009 were around 26 million fillings a year.

Web links

Commons : Aachener Kaiserbrunnen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Stephan Mohne: "Kaiserbrunnen AG" stops production after 150 years. In: Aachener Zeitung. December 31, 2009, accessed July 2, 2010 .
  2. ^ Johannes Pommerening: Hydrogeology, hydrochemistry and genesis of the Aachen thermal springs . Aachen 1993, p. 153 ff .
  3. Werner Käß, Hanna Käß (ed.): German bath book . 2nd Edition. E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-510-65241-9 , pp. 204 ff .