Rügenwalder Mill

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Rügenwalder Mühle Carl Müller GmbH & Co. KG
legal form GmbH & Co. KG
founding 1834
Seat Bad Zwischenahn (Lower Saxony, Germany)
management Michael Hähnel, Lothar Bentlage, Godo Röben
Number of employees 563
sales 169.9 million euros
Branch Food
Website www.ruegenwalder.de
As of December 31, 2018

The Rügenwalder mill Carl Müller GmbH & Co. KG is a food manufacturing company in the food industry in Lower Saxony Bad Zwischenahn . The personally liable partner is Rauffus Beteiligungs-GmbH. Rügenwalder Mühle is also the name of a tower windmill that the company put into operation in Kayhausen in 2012 .

history

Carl Müller founded a butcher shop in the small Pomeranian town of Rügenwalde (now Darłowo, Poland) in 1834 . Carl Müller's successor was his son Johann August Wilhelm Müller. Carl Wilhelm Gottfried Müller, who managed the company in the third generation, produced his tea sausage under this name for the first time in 1903 . In order to be able to distinguish Carl Müller's sausage from others, his wife Alwine designed a red windmill as the company logo ; back then with crooked sausages as wings. The motif of the mill was chosen because the family name was Müller and a competitor named Carl Schiffmann had a ship as a company logo.

Towards the end of the Second World War , the location in Rügenwalde had to be given up in the course of the flight and expulsion of the German population. The Muller family fled in 1946 in the Lower Saxony Westerstede in Ammerland . Business was resumed there and the fourth managing director, Carl Wilhelm Müller, relocated to Bad Zwischenahn in 1956. Under the trained watchmaker Kurt Rauffus († 2007), husband of the heiress Ruth Müller, the company grew into an industrial company in the next generation. Until 2017 his son Christian Rauffus ran the business in the sixth generation. In 2012 a functioning windmill was inaugurated in the Bad Zwischenahn district of Kayhausen am Zwischenahner Meer , which was built with red bricks based on the company logo and is intended to support the company's branding.

Rügenwalder Mühle inaugurated in 2012 in Kayhausen on the Zwischenahner Meer

The product range today includes Rügenwalder tea sausage , ham sausage , under the brand name Schinken Spicker , Mett , liver sausage , ham , meatballs and sausages . As a company formerly based in Rügenwalde, it is allowed to offer its tea sausage on the market under the trademark " Rügenwalder Teewurst ". In addition to the sausage products, the family business has also been producing meat-free products such as vegetarian schnitzel, mini meatballs and cold cuts since 2014, some of these products are vegan.

The company sells almost exclusively in Germany. In 2014 the Federal Cartel Office imposed a three-digit million fine on 21 sausage companies, including Rügenwalder Mühle Carl Müller, for illegal price fixing.

In an interview with the FAZ, the managing director and owner Christian Rauffus spoke about the long-term orientation of the company. He spoke out to the newspaper against frequent meat consumption. He said: “From a nutritional point of view, the sausage is not that screaming.” He said: “I can imagine that we will be working without meat in 20 years”, and “it can also be that with a share of 50 : 50 stand. ”Meat-free products have been on offer since 2015. In November 2016, there were around 100 tons of vegetarian production for around 400 tons of meat products in one week.

At the beginning of 2017, Christian Rauffus retired from operational management after more than 30 years and took over the chairmanship of the company's newly created supervisory board. His son Gunnar Rauffus followed this position in early 2020. Michael Hähnel has headed a management team as chairman of the board since January 2020. This includes Lothar Bentlage (sales, export), Godo Röben (marketing, R&D) and Thomas Wittkowski (production, technology), who have been managing directors since 2017. Michael Hähnel is responsible for the overarching areas of corporate strategy, corporate communication, human resources and corporate governance.

Public appearance

The food manufacturer's logo is a grinder with red sausages as wings. However, there was no real windmill belonging to the company either in Rügenwalde or later in Lower Saxony until the company had a salt-grinding mill built on the east bank of the Zwischenahner Sea in 2011/2012 , which it called the "Rügenwalder Mühle". The mill is made of wood and clinker and is seventeen meters high. It was placed next to the Charlottenhof, a converted Ammerland farmhouse from the 18th century, which functions as the guest house of the Rügenwalder Mühle company, but can also be used for catering by external parties. TV presenter Jörg Pilawa was present as an advertising partner when the keys to the salt mill were handed over . Commercials for the company's products are shot in the vicinity of the mill.

2013 Christian Rauffus supported the proposal of a meat-free days . The Süddeutsche Zeitung cited an interview between Rauffus and the Handelsblatt. According to the SZ, there is a trend towards flexitarianism , many people want to eat meat in moderation and with a clear conscience, and vegetarian food is also becoming increasingly popular.

In September 2016 the Stiftung Warentest tested vegetarian meat substitute products, including the vegetarian schnitzel from Rügenwalder, which was rated as poor . According to Stiftung Warentest, relatively high concentrations of saturated hydrocarbons from mineral oil were found at 400 milligrams per kilogram , for which there are no limit values, but which are classified as "potentially worrying" according to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Rügenwalder Mühle told the Rheinische Post that the residues were caused by a paraffin that was expressly approved for the production of food. It was used by a supplier, but is not a mineral oil that is hazardous to health. The company had this verified through analyzes in several independent laboratories. The ingredient that was responsible for the paraffin was also replaced. It is no longer used at Rügenwalder Mühle. The company's vegetable patties became test winners in the “Veggie Meatballs” category. In 2019, the product “Vegan Mühlen Burger Typ Rind” received the grade “Good” in a test by the magazine “Öko-Test” and thus became the test winner in the category “Like-Meat-Burger”. PETA Germany honored the product with the Vegan Food Award 2019 as "best vegan steak".

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Annual financial statements as of December 31, 2018 in the eBundesanzeiger
  2. ↑ a b Family history of the Rügenwalder mill .
  3. ^ A b Florian Langenscheidt (ed.): German standards: brands of the century . 15th, revised edition. Gabler et al., Wiesbaden et al. 2006, ISBN 3-8349-0436-8 , pp. 448 ( google.com [accessed August 27, 2016]).
  4. ↑ Rügenwalder Mühle: Our craft tradition: tea sausage. May 29, 2013. Retrieved August 27, 2016 .
  5. ↑ a b Our company logo you can touch. In: www.ruegenwalder.de. Retrieved February 13, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Our boss. Rügenwalder Mühle, May 23, 2013, accessed on August 27, 2016 .
  7. ↑ a b c Proposal from the Greens, sausage manufacturer praises Veggie Day Süddeutsche August 26, 2013.
  8. ↑ Food company Rügenwalder Mühle: "Man, Papa, another sausage?" In: Spiegel Online. August 27, 2016. Retrieved August 27, 2016 .
  9. ↑ a b Martin Dowideit: The man with the mill , accessed on July 5, 2015.
  10. ↑ http://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/DE/Pressemitteilungen/2014/15_07_2014_Wurst.html?nn=3591568 .
  11. ↑ FAZ, A sausage manufacturer wants to get away from meat , November 14, 2016.
  12. ↑ Rügenwalder Mühle strengthens its management | Rügenwalder Mill. Retrieved March 10, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Oldenburg Economy June 2012: Rügenwalder Mühle .
  14. ↑ Nordwest-Zeitung on November 15, 2012.
  15. ↑ Vegetarian Schnitzel & Co: The best alternatives to meat. In: test.de . September 28, 2016. Retrieved February 21, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Stiftung Warentest fails veggie sausage. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . September 28, 2016. Retrieved October 5, 2016 .
  17. ↑ Bastian Brauns: Danger lurks in the Veggi burger too. In: The time . September 28, 2016. Retrieved October 5, 2016 .
  18. ^ Rheinische Post, The meat inspection for vegetarians , October 28, 2016.
  19. ↑ WORLD: "Öko-Test": Flavor enhancers, mineral oil residues - vegan burgers not completely clean . October 24, 2019 ( welt.de [accessed October 29, 2019]).
  20. ↑ PETA Deutschland eV: Vegan Food award 2019 best vegan steak. Retrieved July 21, 2020 .

Coordinates: 53 ° 10 '24.9 "  N , 8 ° 3' 38"  E