Erfurt malt works
| Erfurter Malzwerke GmbH | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1864 |
| Seat | Erfurt |
| management | Dietrich Kaiser, Volker Riechers |
| Number of employees | 52 (2018) |
| sales | EUR 67.7 million (2018) |
| Branch | Malt industry |
| Website | www.erfurter-malzwerke.de |
The Erfurt Malzwerke are a traditional company in Erfurt , which has been run as a GmbH since 1990 , and whose beginnings go back to 1864. It has been owned by Getreide AG , Hamburg , since 1993 .
history
founding
In 1864, the master soap maker Johann Georg Wolff (1806–1888) founded a grain wholesaler in Erfurt, which had been an important transshipment point for agricultural products from the Thuringian Basin since the Middle Ages, which he operated under the company JG Wolff & Sons with his sons Ernst Friedrich (Fritz ) and Hermann operated. In 1869 they leased a small malt house . A few years later a new building was built in the street Am Kochlöffel (today Am Johannistor), in which 60,000 quintals were produced in 1873 . After three years, malt production was doubled and the existing new building was expanded.
New building in the former Moltkestrasse 1885
The economic success prompted the owners to build a large malt factory in what was then Moltkestrasse (now Thälmannstrasse) at the corner of Iderhoffstrasse . At the time the first building complex of the malt house was built (Tennenhaus and Darrhaus) there were no residential buildings in the immediate vicinity. In 1887 the company was divided between the brothers. Ernst Friedrich took over the new Moltkestrasse location under the Fritz Wolff Malzwerke Erfurt company , Hermann continued to operate the Am Kochlöffel location.
In the 1930s there was a major expansion in the Expressionist style by the Erfurt architect Georg Bierbaum . In 1940 Malzwolff, as the factory in Erfurt was called, was one of the most important malt factories in Germany with a total annual production of over 300,000 hundredweight. The original threshing floor malt house, which required large storage areas and enormous physical labor, was later modernized through improved transport technology (chain and screw conveyors), the construction of silo systems with post-drying of grain, and the renovation of the kilns .
Another malt house, the Eisenberg family's malt factory , was built at the Erfurt Nordbahnhof near Magdeburger Allee . This was founded as an AG based in Erfurt on August 15, 1918, later renamed Malzfabriken J. Eisenberg & Etgersleben Aktiengesellschaft, renamed United Malzfabriken Erfurt & Etgersleben AG on August 29, 1941.
Nationalization in 1945
In 1945 the companies were expropriated, nationalized and continued to operate under the name VEB Erfurter Malzwerke . The Roststrasse location (at the Nordbahnhof) was modernized in the mid-1960s with the construction of a modern barley and malt silo as well as a production building (soft house and germination box), while at Thälmannstrasse the machines of the thirties - after partial conversion to electric motor drive - were largely modernized remained in use until the plant was shut down in 2000.
Reprivatisation and modernization after 1991
In 1991 the company was reprivatised and in 1993 it was taken over by Getreide AG ( Hamburg ). The Am Kochlöffel location was abandoned and demolished. All investments focused on the facility in Erfurt Nord (formerly Roststrasse) in order to convert it into a state-of-the-art malt house. In this context, more than 8 million euros were invested in 1994. The core of this investment is a two-tray high-performance kiln. The kiln building was designed as a skeleton construction with a stainless steel interior cladding. The use of external insulation and glass tube heat exchangers reduced energy consumption significantly. Electronic control of the production process enables automatic loading and unloading with low energy requirements. In 2000, the planned expansion of the malting plant with the construction of a softening, germination and drying tower took place for a further 8 million euros . The resulting tower malt house is built in a compact design and designed for a batch of 240 tons of brewing barley. The entire production process is monitored by a computerized control and management system. On the top floor of the malt tower there are four conical switches made of stainless steel - which are fed with the sorted and cleaned malting barley via an elevator. Three germinating units, each 23 meters in diameter, are arranged on the lower floors of the tower. There is a unicorn kiln on the bottom floor. After kilning, the completely dried malt arrives at the malt silo, where it is stored and later prepared for shipping to the customer. The tower malt house has been running successfully with full production since January 2001. With the tower malt house, the company has laid the foundation for a successful positioning in the highly competitive malting market and thus has a high-tech production facility that corresponds to international standards in terms of production quality, hygiene standards, energy consumption and use of personnel. In 2008 another tower malt house, a germination and drying tower , was built at the site for around 15 million euros, which went into trial operation in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Today's meaning
The company is one of the most important suppliers, especially German breweries. The total production capacity of Erfurter Malzwerke GmbH at the Erfurt site has been around 120,000 tons of malt (2008: 80,000 tons) per year since 2010. The company has been certified according to ISO 9001, HACCP and since 2013 according to ISO 50001 on a regular basis.
The malt house on Thälmannstrasse, which has not been in production since 2000, is a significant urban ensemble of industrial architecture and is classified as a cultural monument and was sold in 2012.
Since 2013, Erfurter Malzwerke GmbH has also been marketing the malt produced by its sister company Hanse-Malz GmbH in Hamburg (with a malting tower); since 2017, the sister company in Hamburg has merged with Erfurter Malzwerke GmbH and is managed as a second location. The international sales market has been steadily expanding since 2013, and customers include a wide variety of breweries on the European, Asian, African and South American continents.
Literature and Sources
- Johannes Biereye : The secret Kommerzienrat Friedrich Ernst Wolff and his family. Erfurt 1933.
- Hermann Böhlaus successor: History of the city of Erfurt. Cape. 17, Weimar 1989.
- Hytrek, Thomas, Weyell and Weyell: Inventory and development reports for the malt factory in Erfurt. (unpublished), Erfurt 1994.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Annual financial statements for the 2018 financial year in the Federal Gazette
- ↑ Dietmar Grosser: Erfurt brewing malt once went halfway around the world , Thüringer Allgemeine , Erfurt, January 2, 2016
Coordinates: 51 ° 0 ′ 6.5 ″ N , 11 ° 1 ′ 40.4 ″ E