GABA group
| GABA International AG
|
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Corporation |
| Seat | Therwil , Switzerland |
| Branch | dental care |
| Website | www.gaba.ch |
The Gaba Group is a Swiss company that manufactures dental and oral care products. The name is an acronym for " G oldene A potheke Ba sel". The best-known umbrella brands are elmex , aronal and meridol . The Gaba Group has been part of the Colgate-Palmolive Group since 2004 .
structure
The headquarters of the group-leading Gaba International AG and the subsidiary “Gaba Schweiz” are in Therwil near Basel . The Gaba Group has subsidiaries in Germany (“Gaba Deutschland”, based in Lörrach , founded in 1921), Italy, France (“Gaba Laboratoires”, based in Paris , since 1999), Belgium (“Gaba Benelux”, founded in 1991) and the Netherlands ("Gaba Benelux", founded in 1919). There are also license and sales partnerships in Spain, Portugal, Finland, Luxembourg, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Israel.
history
The "Goldene Apotheke Basel" was founded in 1638 as one of the first pharmacies in the city of Basel and is one of the oldest companies still in existence in Switzerland. In 1846, the Basel doctor Emanuel Wybert (1807–1884) brought back a prescription for a cough medicine from a study trip to America. His friend Hermann Geiger, then owner of the pharmacy, sold the so-called “Wybertli pastilles” for the first time during a flu epidemic that year. Due to the positive response from 1906 onwards, they were manufactured industrially by Hermann Geiger and his brother Paul Geiger in St. Ludwig, Alsace (today Saint-Louis ) under the name "Wybert". In 1910 they were renamed "Gaba tablets" and advertised as a brand. In 1917 the company was split into two parts: the Goldene Apotheke and the "Gaba AG" founded by Hermann Geiger for the mass production of tablets. Between 1919 and 1926 the subsidiaries in Germany and Belgium, as well as the holding company "Doma AG" (later Gaba AG) in Basel. The Wybert pastilles were advertised with slogans that had been written by Elly Heuss-Knapp , the wife of the future German President Theodor Heuss ( "Whether it winds, rains or snows, Wybert protects against hoarseness" ). Contact between Wybert and Elly Heuss-Knapp came about because Hermann Geiger was her cousin.
From 1944 on, Gaba specialized in oral and dental hygiene and brought the aronal toothpaste with the addition of vitamin A onto the market in Switzerland. After the Second World War, Ernst Ludwig Heuss (1910–1967), the son of Theodor Heuss, became head of Wybert GmbH in Lörrach, and later of Gaba AG in Basel. After the development of the amine fluoride, the elmex toothpaste against caries was developed in 1963 . Since the late 1960s, other new products have been launched, including the meridol mouth rinse in 1986 and toothbrushes for various target groups since 1999. In 1979 "Gaba International AG" was founded as a summary of the central services of the group. In 1992 a new logistics center was built in Hauingen . In 1999 the “Wybert Pastilles” brand was sold because it no longer suited the company's core profile, and later the “Plantur” hair care brand as well. In 2000 the entire corporate group changed its name completely from Wybert to Gaba. In 2001 the companies "Odopharm" (Paris) and "Vebas" (near Milan) were taken over.
From the end of 2003 to June 1, 2004, Gaba was integrated into the Colgate-Palmolive Group, but remained as an independent unit under the umbrella of Colgate-Palmolive. In November 2012 it was announced that the Lörrach and Therwil production sites would be closed and that production would take place in Poland in Świdnica in Lower Silesia from 2013 . A total of 240 positions will be deleted. In May of the following year, Colgate-Palmolive announced that it would move its European headquarters from Geneva to Therwil and merge it there with the headquarters of its subsidiary “Gaba International AG”. Around 65 employees in Geneva were affected by these plans.
Products
It mainly produces toothpastes , tooth and mouth washes, jellies and toothbrushes, but also special products for dentists . The company's customers are the cross-sector end-consumer trade as well as the dental specialist public, as well as drug stores and pharmacies. The famous cough lozenges, called "Gaba-Täfeli " or "Gaba-Zeltli" in Switzerland , were re-named Wybert lozenges after 90 years and were excluded from the GABA product range.
Key figures
The Gaba Group is the market leader in its business area in Germany and Switzerland. In Germany, the Gaba brands have an estimated market share of 20 percent on average (toothpastes around 22–23%, manual toothbrushes around 12–13%, rinses around 35–36%). The annual turnover of the German Gaba GmbH is around 170 million euros. Gaba employs around 600 to 700 people in Switzerland and Lörrach (2003: 670 employees, a total of 350 million Swiss francs in sales; in 2002 the Gaba Group achieved worldwide sales of 232 million euros).
Research and Development
In the 1950s, Gaba developed organic fluorides ( amine fluorides ), especially Olaflur and Dectaflur, in collaboration with the Dental Institute of the University of Zurich as an alternative to the common inorganic fluorides such as sodium fluoride and sodium monofluorophosphate . They serve as active ingredients for plaque prophylaxis in the elmex products. An olaflur / tin fluoride combination is used in meridol products .
literature
- Paul Geiger-Mähly, Theodor Nordmann: The Golden Pharmacy in Basel. With an appendix on the historical development of pharmacy in Basel . Frobenius, Basel 1931.
- Markus Moehring, Marion Ziegler-Jung: From Wybertli to elmex. Wybert and GABA in Lörrach 1921–2015 , Lörracher Hefte, Rote Schriftenreihe des Dreiländermuseum No. 21, 2015, Waldemar Lutz, Lörrach 2015 ISBN 978-3-922107-05-7 pdf; accessed on November 30, 2018
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pharmacy Adhoc: 404 error page - APOTHEKE ADHOC . Archived from the original on August 10, 2014. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Hermann Geiger , Fondatione Culturale Hermann Geiger
- ↑ Oldest Swiss company or brand still in existence today , Mueller Science
- ↑ Pharmacy Adhoc: 404 error page - APOTHEKE ADHOC . Archived from the original on August 10, 2014. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Badische Zeitung: Elmex manufacturers Gaba sweeps 142 points in Lörrach - Lörrach - Badische Zeitung .
- ^ Thomas Immoos: Affliction after Elmex was closed in Therwil . September 11, 2012.
- ↑ Moneycab: Moneycab ›Colgate-Palmolive relocates European headquarters from Geneva to the Basel area . May 2, 2013.
- ↑ eMuseum .
- ↑ elmex® caries protection - effective protection against caries .
- ↑ Pharmacy Adhoc: Gaba visits less pharmacies .
