Küfferle (company)
The Viennese chocolate company Küfferle was founded in 1865 or 1866 by the brothers August Josef (1844–1911) and Josef or Alois Küfferle, a former corvette captain , as well as a sister, in Untermeidling , which is now part of Vienna's 12th district of Meidling . Her father was the linen and cotton manufacturer Josef Ignaz Anton Küfferle (1810–1849); the mother Maria (née Fassnach) came from Bierlingen in Württemberg . The paternal grandfather was Josef Ignaz Küfferle (1775–18 ??) from Konstanz , who came to Vienna in 1806 and founded a canvas factory here. The paternal grandmother was a certain Anna Hähnke.
The capital required to set up the company came from inherited assets. Initially, the company specialized primarily in the production of malt products such as sweets, but over the years it increasingly switched to chocolate production, which gave it an excellent reputation for its products. From this time on, the company operated as Wilhelmsdorfer Malzproduktion und Chokoladenfabrik Josef Küfferle & Co. ( Wilhelmsdorf was once also an independent municipality and now belonged to Meidling). After a few years, August Josef Küfferle, who had completed an apprenticeship as a druggist after graduating from the Schottengymnasium , paid off his siblings and remained the sole managing director and owner of the company, which had grown in the meantime.
The products at that time mainly included malt sweets, cooking and edible chocolates, cocoa powder and pralines, the product range not only being popular in Austria-Hungary , but also being delivered to the German Empire and the Balkans . The company has branches in Romania , Bulgaria , Galicia and Hungary , among others . In 1892 the so-called cat's tongues , a wafer-thin chocolate, were produced for the first time . These became one of the company's most successful products and are still available today (as of 2019) under the company name Küfferle and the Küfferle lettering on each individual cat's tongue. Shortly before August Josef Küfferle's death in 1910, the company employed 200 people.
Küfferle died on August 25, 1911 at the age of 67 in Hinterbrühl near Vienna and left the company to the next generation. From the marriage with Aurelia Schwach - the two married in Vienna in 1866 - had four sons, including August (1889–1967), Walter (1890–1965), Josef and a son whose name is now unknown, with all four sons working in the father's company were. After the First World War , the company's foreign branches were lost. In 1925 the company was converted into a stock corporation and in the following years employed an average of 400 people. In 1950 the company invented the so-called chocolate umbrellas , at that time still known as Schoko-Knirpse , which also became a legendary product next to the cat's tongues and are still sold today (as of 2019) under the company name Küfferle . For decades, the company was located at Eichenstraße 60, not far from Meidling train station .
In 1959 Küfferle Aktiengesellschaft employed 210 workers and 50 employees. In 1972 the company was sold to the Hofbauer chocolate company and is still very well known throughout Austria thanks to products such as the chocolate umbrellas and the cat's tongues, on whose packaging and embossing the name Küfferle is still present today. Hofbauer himself has been part of the Swiss chocolate manufacturer Lindt & Sprüngli since 1994 .
Web links
- August Josef Küfferle in German Biography , accessed on July 7, 2019.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The history of the chocolate umbrellas , accessed on July 7, 2019
- ↑ Küfferle (companies) in Vienna History Wiki of the city of Vienna , accessed on July 7, 2019
- ↑ AT | 1120 Vienna | Küfferle chocolate factory | 1941 , Retrieved July 7, 2019
- ^ Industrie-Compass Austria 1959. Compass Verlag, 1959
- ↑ What remained of sweet Viennese brands , accessed on July 7, 2019