Riquet & Co.

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Riquet & Co AG share of more than 100 gold marks from July 26, 1924

The Riquet & Co. Ltd. was a company for manufacturing and retail sales of cocoa, chocolate, chocolates and sweets in Leipzig and Gautzsch . It also traded in tea, Chinese and oriental goods.

history

Advert by Riquet & Co. (around 1900)
Factory building in Gautzsch (around 1910)

After the edict of Fontainebleau forbade the Huguenots to practice their religion freely in 1685 , the Riquet family emigrated from France to Germany. Jean George Riquet was probably born in Magdeburg in 1713, and on November 15, 1745 he founded a "colonial wholesaler" in Leipzig. The headquarters of the company, which imported tea, coffee and spices, was initially on Katharinenstraße, and from 1763 on Klostergasse 5. Riquet's customers also included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , who declared the brand to be his favorite chocolate, and Jean George Riquet led a lively correspondence. After Riquet's death, his nephew of the same name continued to run the company from 1791. In 1818 he again handed it over to his partner Christian Friedrich Meyer, who expanded it into a “specialty tea shop”. Around 1850 Meyer set up a department for the retail trade with cocoa, English biscuits, jams, coffee, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, Japanese and Chinese goods. In 1890 an independent cocoa production started in Dörrienstraße, which was relocated five years later to Koburger Straße in the Leipzig suburb of Gautzsch (today part of Markkleeberg ). In 1896 the number of employees was 95. When the company was converted into a stock corporation in 1905 , it had 240 employees, and in 1913 there were 401; In 1921 the company employed 700 people; during the period of inflation this number fell again, to only 614 in 1924.

After the referendum in Saxony in 1946 approved the expropriation of large companies by "Nazi and war criminals", Riquet & Co. AG was expropriated without compensation. From 1947 the company belonged to the “Association of Saxon Consumer Cooperatives” and was converted into a production facility for the KONSÜ consumer sweet and long-life bakery goods combine, chocolate production was discontinued and candy production began. So were u. a. Fillings for drops and the "Pfeffi" mints are made. Production was stopped in the early 1990s. The company continued to operate as a property management company until the company was dissolved in 1995 and became part of Zentralkonsum eG as Quartier Riquet . Most of the factory buildings were demolished in 2002. Today only the listed and extensively renovated main building and the chocolate factory office building, which was also listed in 1908, remain. These were converted together with a modern new building as a link to the Riquet quarter , which has been used since 2004 by the machine and energy technology department of the Leipzig University of Technology, Economics and Culture and by etkon AG - Center for Digital Dental Technology . In addition, a residential park with four city villas and a shopping market have been created.

Chocolate under the name "Riquet" has been produced by Waldbaur in Stuttgart since 1945 . Today this brand is still produced for the Hofer trading company .

  • The elephant as a trademark of Riquet & Co. Tea Import

  • Sales rooms of the Riquet & Co. company in the Riquet House around 1909, including a description that is worth advertising

  • Konsü sweets

Riquet House

Entrance with two elephants on the right and left
Riquethaus (state 2013)

In 1888 the company opened a store at Goethestrasse 6 opposite the New Theater . In order to save the rental costs, a trade fair and commercial building designed by the architect Paul Lange was built in Schuhmachergäßchen 1–3 at the corner of Reichsstraße. Its pagoda-like roof structure and the unusual facade design with elaborate colored Art Nouveau mosaics with an advertising character are based on classical Chinese architecture. The elephant, which has become the central motif in Riquet advertisements since the end of the 19th century, adorns the entrance area of ​​the office building with two life-size animal heads driven by copper.

The Riquethaus was faithfully restored in 1994/95 by the Cologne architect Knut Bienhaus. The tower top that was destroyed in World War II was also reconstructed and the shop fittings on the ground floor were added. The Riquet coffee house has been located in the building since 1996 . This is one of the few remaining cafés in downtown Leipzig and is currently operated by Peter Stahlhut.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Peter Taubenheim: The history of the chocolate factory Riquet & Co. (Part 2), in: Markkleeberger Stadtjournal , Issue 13/2010 of July 7, 2010, p. 4.
  2. ^ Wolfgang Hocquél: Leipzig. Architecture from the Romanesque to the present. Passage-Verlag, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 3-932900-54-5 , p. 105.

Web links

Commons : Riquet & Co.  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 17 '0.4 "  N , 12 ° 21' 56.9"  E