August Oetker

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Patent dated September 21, 1903

August Oetker (born January 6, 1862 in Obernkirchen ; † January 10, 1918 in Bielefeld ) was a German entrepreneur and founder of today's Oetker Group .

Life

August Oetker was born on January 6, 1862 as the son of August Adolph Oetker and Bertha Oetker. His father was a master baker, his mother the daughter of a lawyer. He had two siblings. After the community school he went to the Adolfinum-Gymnasium in Bückeburg , where he graduated from high school in 1878. He then completed an apprenticeship as a pharmacist in the Ratsapotheke in Stadthagen . To do this, Oetker had to walk around 16 kilometers from Obernkirchen at home every day. In 1881 he passed the exam with a grade of good . Then his wandering years began. First in Langen near Offenbach, then a few more unknown stations. Probably in 1884 he came to Hanau in a company that mainly produced equipment for pharmacies. Here he met his future wife Caroline. But first Oetker began studying natural sciences in Berlin and studied this subject for four semesters. He graduated with a very good grade . Then he started his dissertation on the topic Does the pollen show characteristic differences in the subdivisions of the plant families? in botany , which he successfully completed in 1888 at the University of Freiburg.

Oetker started his professional life with a few first unsuccessful entrepreneurial attempts in Berlin, where he had moved with his wife Caroline. He married the young woman from Hanau on March 20, 1889, and his son Rudolf was born on November 17, 1889. In 1891 he acquired the Aschoffsche Apotheke in Bielefeld and developed a leavening agent there and in the Müller bakery , which was supposed to guarantee the success of the baked goods . The idea for this came from his US-based cousin, Louis Dohme, who reported on the local distribution of Professor Horsford's Phosphatic Baking Powder baking agent. August Oetker succeeded in producing a durable and tasteless leavening agent.

From 1893, Oetker filled his baking powder, which he named "Backin", thus laying the foundation for the Oetker Group , which still produces it today with the same recipe. A sachet was sold at a price of 10 pfennigs (this was the price that was held in the company for 70 years) and was carried out from the start with corresponding instructions and explanations for using the backin. The size of the contents of the bag was designed for use with 500 grams (1 pound) of flour. On September 21, 1903, Oetker had his "process for the production of permanent baking powder or ready-to-bake flour" patented . With the business idea of ​​marketing baking powder in small quantities for private use, August Oetker laid the foundation for his later success. But his idea was not the baking powder, but the application. More than 30 years before Oetker, Eben Norton Horsford , a former student of Justus Liebig , invented a baking powder that was recommended to bakers in the USA as a baking powder .

Just one year later, the range was expanded to include the "Original Puddings". The success of these first steps in sales was due to the fact that August Oetker pursued a clear marketing strategy from the start. For example, free application examples, recipes and recommendations were enclosed with the products. The guaranteed effectiveness of the products was demonstrated in test and demonstration kitchens. Targeted advertising slogans were used and, since 1899, the “Dr. Oetker “trademark is used. The sale of Dr. Oetker products was promoted in 1908 by the establishment of a dedicated advertising department whose budget amounted to around 6% of sales. In 1910, the first Dr. Oetker cookbooks were published and a cinema advertising film “Backpulver, was otherwise” was produced and distributed especially for further distribution.

Thanks to the skilful marketing, the products were extremely popular and his pharmacy quickly became a successful company . As early as 1900, Oetker built the first factory in Bielefeld's Lutterstrasse - the company's current headquarters - and by 1906 had already sold 50 million packets of Backin. Another aspect of his entrepreneurial activity consisted in the fact that from 1907 he increasingly involved his employees in the company's success. Social conditions at the workplace, free drinks during breaks, company outings and the election of a works committee were part of the normal picture at the workplace of employees.

In 1903 August Oetker was one of the founders of an "Association of Manufacturers of Branded Articles". Because the company grew constantly, the son Rudolf was included in the management in 1914. During the First World War, as the commander of a unit of 200 soldiers, he was fatally wounded near Verdun. Because August Oetker became seriously ill himself in 1917, he appointed his long-term employee Fritz Behringer as managing director and partner, but stipulated in his will that the company would remain in the family's possession and that it would later be continued by his grandson Rudolf, born on September 20, 1916.

August Oetker died on January 10, 1918, just four days after his 56th birthday. His burial place is in the Bielefeld Johannisfriedhof .

His grandson Rudolf-August Oetker took over the company in 1947, followed by August Oetker the Younger .

Works

literature

  • Barbara Gerstein:  Oetker, August. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 470 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Sidney Pollard, Roland Möller: Dr. August Oetker (1862-1918). In: Wolfhard Weber (ed.) Bielefeld entrepreneurs from the 18th to the 20th century. (= Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien , Volume 14.) Aschendorff, Münster 1991, ISBN 978-3-4020-5589-2 , pp. 356-377.
  • Rüdiger Jungbluth : The Oetkers, shops and secrets of the most famous economic dynasty in Germany , Bastei Lübbe paperback, Bergisch Gladbach 2004. ISBN 978-3-404-61594-0
  • Hiltrud Böcker-Lönnendonker: Karoline Oetker, Die Ehrenbürgerin , Pendragon, Bielefeld 2011. ISBN 978-3-86532-232-6
  • Jesko Dahlmann: Innovative entrepreneurship in the sense of Schumpeter: theory and economic history. Metropolis Verlag, Marburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-7316-1269-8 , pp. 192-233.

documentation

  • German Dynasties - The Oetkers. Documentary, Germany, 2010, 44 min., A film by Manfred Oldenburg, production: WDR , series: Deutsche Dynastien, first broadcast: ARD , November 15, 2010, online video and synopsis ( memento from January 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) the ARD.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Rüdiger Jungblut: The Oetkers, shops and secrets of the most famous economic dynasty in Germany . 1st edition. Bastei Lübbe paperback, Bergisch Gladbach 2006, ISBN 978-3-422-02112-9 , pp. 43 .
  2. ↑ Rüdiger Jungblut: The Oetkers, shops and secrets of the most famous economic dynasty in Germany . 1st edition. Bastei Lübbe paperback, Bergisch Gladbach 2006, ISBN 978-3-422-02112-9 , pp. 44 .
  3. ↑ Rüdiger Jungblut: The Oetkers, shops and secrets of the most famous economic dynasty in Germany . 1st edition. Bastei Lübbe paperback, Bergisch Gladbach 2006, ISBN 978-3-422-02112-9 , pp. 46 .
personal data
SURNAME Oetker, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German inventor and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Obernkirchen
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1918
Place of death Bielefeld