Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle
The Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle was a state-recognized mineral spring in Offenbach am Main since 1888 . The spring water was sold undiluted as therapeutic healing water and mixed with fruit juices as lemonade under the name of Frischa. The mineral water spring was closed in the 1990s due to excessive salinity and in 1996 operations at the Offenbach site were discontinued. The mineral water with the name Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle was bottled from then on from the Trajanus spring in Roisdorf near Bonn. After the bankruptcy of Nieder-Rosbacher Brunnenbetrieb in 2001 and its takeover by the current Hassia Group in Bad Vilbel, the mineral water now comes from the Selzerbrunnen in Groß-Karben in Wetterau.
prehistory
In 1887, the Offenbach-based manufacturer of brewing machines, Adam Neubecker, had service and cooling water for his machine factory searched for on the company's own property between Frankfurter Strasse and Ludwigstrasse. When drilling the well, a mineral-rich healing water source was found at a depth of 275 m. Neubecker named the mineral spring after the liberal Emperor Friedrich III, who was popular in Offenbach at the time . and tried to establish a spa in the city. In the industrial city of Offenbach , the project was controversial, the established company owners feared restrictions, relocations or closings of their operations. Neubecker built a provisional spa with drinking spa and spa gardens. He converted his house, the Neubecker factory owner's villa, into a spa house. An extensive advertising campaign began in 1887 , with 320 trams and 200 buses advertising the Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle in Berlin alone . The advertising budget was 2.3 pfennigs per bottle filling, a high advertising expenditure at the time. His private investments eventually led him to bankruptcy, which also affected his machine factory. Neubecker was then able to rebuild his machine factory. The former spa business was not resumed and the Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle Aktiengesellschaft was founded instead. Offenbach am Main had lost its short-term status as a spa town and Bad Offenbach remained an ambition that could not be fulfilled.
Special features of the mineral water
The mineral water of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle contained a high iodide content of 150 micrograms per liter. Already 1000 grams (1 liter) of the medicinal water almost cover the recommended daily iodide requirement of an adult. The iron content was not removed from the spring water, an exception for mineral water.
Company history Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle AG
After the bankruptcy of the health resort and the establishment of Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle AG, the former health resort was built over with storage halls and bottling plants. The company was owned by the Herzfeld banking family from Hanover . With Karl S. Herzfeld, the family provided the chairman of the supervisory board from 1912 to 1969. The first CEO was Matthias Brauweiler from 1897, who ran the company together with his son Peter Brauweiler until the end of the 1920s. Father and son Brauweiler modernized the company in 1910 with 12 company-owned railroad insulation wagons and in 1920 with a fully automatic filling system, which could have a capacity of 30,000 bottles per day. In 1921, the horse-drawn carts that had been used up until then were replaced by trucks with trailers. As early as 1920, Matthias Brauweiler developed the first lemonades using the medicinal water. From the beginning of the 1930s until his death in 1948, the Kommerzienrat Conrad Schumacher led the company. His son Egon Schumacher took over the management from 1955 and modernized the company further. New products were introduced after market studies and test runs, which led to the successful launch of the Frischa orange lemonade in 1958. Just two years later, 10 million bottles of the Frischa brand had been filled and sold. In 1968 Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle AG bottled the first hot orange juice drink, an innovation in the mineral fountain and fruit juice industry. This production process extended the shelf life of the fruit juices. When the Maschinenfabrik Neubecker was shut down in 1989, Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle took over the neighboring factory premises. After the spring water of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle became more and more saline, the well was shut down, in 1996 the bottling plant was sold to Rosbacher Brunnen GmbH and the company initially remained as a subsidiary. On November 13, 2001, Rosbacher Brunnen GmbH applied for insolvency proceedings and was then taken over by Hassia Mineralquellen GmbH & Co. KG . Today the brand names Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle and Frischa belong to the Hassia group of companies.
Division and sale of the site to real estate investors
The premises of the former Neubecker machine factory and Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle were divided up and sold. First, the Villa Neubecker went to a real estate investor who built the once spacious garden with so-called “city villas”, while the listed building fell into disrepair. After a long vacancy, it was renovated in 2004. The Villa Neubecker and the Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle are part of the Route of Industrial Culture Rhein-Main in Offenbach am Main.
The northern half of the area at Ludwigstrasse 62 was sold to HBB Hanseatische Gesellschaft für Seniorenheime mbH & Co. KG. After the demolition of all the old halls, the “DOMICIL senior care home in the Westend” was opened on May 1st, 2011. The southern half of the property was initially undeveloped after the demolition, but a residential complex is now being built there.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lists of the natural mineral waters officially recognized in the Federal Republic of Germany. (PDF; 205 kB) In: quellenatlas.eu. Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, December 23, 2010, p. 13 , accessed on January 21, 2016 .
- ↑ Martin Kuhn: excavators seal the end. In: op-online.de . August 9, 2009, accessed January 21, 2016 .
- ↑ Local route guide No. 9 of the Route der Industriekultur Rhein-Main. (PDF; 519 kB) In: krfrm.de. KulturRegion FrankfurtRheinMain gGmbH, December 2005, accessed on November 14, 2015 .
literature
- German Economic Archives Volume Eins , 1994, Franz Steiner Verlag, authors: Renate Schwärzel, Klara von Eyll, Society for Company History, ISBN 3-515-06211-4
- Offenbach - what a city , published by Volkshochschule Offenbach, Verlag CoCon, ISBN 978-3-937774-05-3
- Kaiser-Friedrich-Quelle (Natron-Lithion-Heilquelle) in Offenbach am Main around 1890 Commons
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 9.9 ″ N , 8 ° 45 ′ 13.6 ″ E