Haba (toy manufacturer)

HABA is a redirect to this article. For further meanings, see Haba .

Habermaass GmbH
legal form	GmbH
founding	1938
Seat	Bad Rodach , Germany
management	Klaus Habermaaß, Karl Fischer, Arnd Mückenberger, Tim Steffens
Number of employees	1276 (2017)
sales	132 million € (2017)
Branch	Toys , furniture , clothing
Website	www.haba.de

Play street sign with JAKO-O logo in Witten-Bommern 2018

The HABA stand at the Essen International Game Days 2008

The Habermaass GmbH (until 2017 Habermaaß GmbH ) is a German toy manufacturer, based in Bad Rodach , district Coburg in Upper Franconia , Bavaria . The company offers a range of wooden and textile toys, board and card games, puzzles, books, furniture and children's room accessories. The company is family-owned - under the management of the managing partner Klaus Habermaaß and the managing directors Harald Grosch and Karl Fischer.

history

The merchant Eugen Habermaaß, born in 1901 in Tübingen, came about Neustadt bei Coburg , where he worked as an authorized signatory of the company in the 1930s, O. & M. Hausser worked over Bayreuth , where he Director of the Bavarian Ostmark was guild eGmbH, 1938 to Rodach near Coburg. In April 1938, he bought half of the “Anton Engel” company, a factory for finely polished wood products, from the manufacturer Anton Engel for RM 25,000. In the same month, Habermaaß and Engel founded the wholesaling company "Wehrfritz & Co." with the businessman Karl Wehrfritz.

Karl Wehrfritz left the company six months later. In 1940 Anton Engel withdrew from the company and the name was changed to the limited partnership "Habermaaß & Co.". Eugen Habermaaß was a managing partner and his wife Luise was a partner. During the Second World War, the company produced transport and ammunition boxes as well as wooden model vehicles and tanks for training purposes for the Wehrmacht. In 1945 the American military government placed the company under trust for one year. When Eugen Habermaaß died unexpectedly in 1955, his wife took over the management. At the same time, their son and later managing director Klaus Habermaaß decided to start an apprenticeship as a carpenter . After completing his engineering degree in 1961 , he actively entered the company's business life. In the following years the company continued to grow.

The small manufacturer of wooden toys began its development to become the market leader in this sector and expanded its sales markets. The Upper Franconian toy manufacturer initially expanded to the USA, where in 1980 the US company “Skaneateles Handicrafters” initially became part of Habermaaß GmbH as a production and sales location . Renamed to "TC Timber" in the following years , the company was finally renamed "HABA USA" in 2002 . In the meantime, a French branch was established under the name "HABA SARL" near Paris (1993) and in 2005 HABA UK as a location in Great Britain . In 2011 the establishment of a branch in Hong Kong ( "HABA Asia" ) followed.

In order to expand their product range, the company family consisting of the companies HABA and Wehrfritz decided in 1987 to found Jako-o GmbH , a mail order company for children's fashion, toys and accessories, which in 2004 took over the Fit-z! and Qiéro! advanced. In February 2015, the group of companies took over the children's app developer Fox and Sheep .

In 2013 the group of companies had around 2000 employees. The total turnover in 2012 was 354 million euros. In 2017 the company changed its name from "Habermaass GmbH" to "Habermaass GmbH".

Products

Wehrfritz products at Didacta 2015 in Hanover

Since the company was founded, the processing of wood, for example in wooden toys, has been a focus of production. The company has become known for its building blocks, which are an integral part of the product range to this day. A design department has significantly expanded the range over the decades. In addition to (pull) figures, vehicles, grasping toys and various shop items, the designers developed an expandable marble run system for children aged three and over. Dolls and stuffed toys, carpets, children's room accessories and lights are also part of the range. The product range is supplemented by gift items, sand toys as well as baking and ice cream molds for children's parties.

In the mid-1980s, HABA began developing board games. In 1986, the company's most famous game, the " Obstgarten " , emerged from a competition . Since 2001, an in-house editorial team for books and games has been developing innovations in this segment. The HABA range includes over 1500 items, which are sold in over 50 countries by 9500 specialist dealers.

Company locations and sales areas

Since the company was founded in 1938, the company's production site has been in Bad Rodach in Upper Franconia , a few kilometers from the state border with Thuringia . From there, the company and the activities of all branches are directed and controlled. The company has sales offices in the USA , France , Asia and Great Britain . Today the company is firmly integrated in the European and worldwide market - the company's sales areas range from Japan , Russia , the Middle East and Europe to North and South America .

quality

According to the company's own information, the wooden toys and figures are mainly made in Germany. It advertises with qualified quality management , the use of high-quality raw materials and wood from sustainable forestry , as well as compliance with the standards for toy safety.

criticism

In 2010, Stiftung Warentest came to the conclusion in a major study of German game manufacturers that more than 80% of the tested toys for under three-year-olds were contaminated with harmful substances. The Haba exploration stones are also clearly contaminated with organotin compounds. According to the weekly magazine Der Spiegel , however, children would have had to shred the stones like the product test inspectors in order to come into contact with the pollutants.

Board games for children

• Timberland, 1989, Klaus Teuber
• Cameo, 1992, Rüdiger Dorn
• Ringel Rangel, 1993, Geni Wyss, Children's Game of the Year 1993
• Carom, 1995, Heinz Meister , Children's Game of the Year 1995
• Cast off !, 1997, Alex Randolph , Children's Game of the Year 1997
• Kayanak, 1999, Peter-Paul Joopen, Children's Game of the Year 1999
• Piraten-Pitt, 2000, Wolfgang Kramer , German Children's Games Prize
• Klondike, 2001, Stefanie Rohner and Christian Wolf, Children's Game of the Year 2001
• Glorious Knights, 2002, Roberto Fraga and Odet l'Homer
• The magic castle, 2003, Wolfgang Panning
• Socken Zocken, 2004, Michael Schacht
• The Black Pirate , 2006, Guido Hoffmann , Children's Game of the Year 2006
• Diego Drachenzahn , 2010, Manfred Ludwig , Children's Game of the Year 2010

Web links

Commons : Wehrfritz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• HABA official homepage

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Federal Gazette: Habermaass GmbH Bad Rodach Retrieved on July 1, 2019.
2. ↑ Habermaaß GmbH (Ed.): 75 years of the Haba company family 1938 - 2013. p. 6
3. ↑ Habermaaß GmbH (ed.): 75 years of the Haba company family 1938 - 2013. p. 12
4. ^ Georg Räth: Toy company Haba takes over app developer Fox and Sheep. In: Gründerszene. February 17, 2015, accessed March 8, 2015 . 
5. ↑ Habermaaß GmbH (Ed.): 75 years of the Haba company family 1938 - 2013. P. 127
6. ↑ Habermaaß GmbH (Ed.): 75 years of the Haba company family 1938 - 2013. P. 157
7. ↑ Publication in the commercial register on September 29, 2017
8. ↑ The stuff that game dreams are made of. (No longer available online.) Haba.de, archived from the original on May 9, 2009 ; Retrieved April 7, 2015 . 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.  
9. ↑ Die Welt: Toys fail at Stiftung Warentest , October 21, 2010
10. ↑ Der Spiegel: Teddy bears under torture , October 24, 2011