Rudolf Scheller

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Rudolf Scheller around 1880

Friedrich Heinrich Rudolf Scheller (born May 12, 1822 in Hildburghausen ; † January 14, 1900 in Münchengosserstädt ) was a German pharmacist and food manufacturer. In 1870/71 he was the first to develop the production of dry soups , which he began to produce in the factory from 1872.

Life

Rudolf Scheller was the son of the banker and factory owner Johann Erdmann Scheller (1785–1845) and his wife Karolina Maria geb. Schumann (1797-1858). After attending school, he initially trained as a pharmacist and studied pharmacy in Jena in 1845/46 . He then managed a pharmacy in Frankfurt am Main for a few years .

During a stay in Vienna he got to know the production of tobacco pipes from meerschaum , whereupon he opened a factory for meerschaum goods in Hildburghausen in 1860. In 1866 he sent twelve employees to Vienna for training, but turned to a new profession in 1870/71.

Scheller's factory for table soups in Hildburghausen

He had noticed the one-sided supply of the soldiers in the Franco-German War with the pea soup to be made from the pea sausage invented by Johann Heinrich Grüneberg in 1868 . So he experimented with other types of soup in dry form, which he called "condensed" (that is, evaporated ). He was able to market four of them quickly and successfully: pea soup , rice soup , gourmets soup and dark gruel soup . Scheller pressed bars into six portions, developing the press himself and each of the six pieces being enough for a plate of soup. The downwardly conical soup bars measured approximately 9 × 7 × 1.5 cm. The soup bars consisted of beef tallow, vegetables and spices, to which rice, semolina, wheat or legume flours were mixed, and were boiled in water. Five to ten minutes were required for individual preparation to be ready for consumption. In-house production began in 1872, while the production of meerschaum products declined. However, there were no major orders from the military for his soups, and Scheller relied on the civilian population.

For about 15 years he produced without significant competition and achieved very high sales, including through sales to the USA. Then the companies Maggi and Knorr came more and more strongly to the market, especially through intensive advertising, with which the Hildburghausen family business could not keep up.

In the mid-1890s, Rudolf Scheller resigned and moved to one of his sons in Münchengosserstädt, while another took over the business, with dried vegetables and seasonings now in the foreground. Production ran until 1947, a factory building was sold in the 1920s and converted into a school for the deaf, today the Hildburghausen Police Station is there.

Rudolf Scheller worked in Münchengosserstädt with the construction of a swimming learning device, which he applied for a patent, but which did not establish itself.

family

Rudolf Scheller married Caroline born in Saalfeld in 1863 . Kühner (1843–1911), whose father was a teacher and cantor here. The couple had four sons, the first of whom died early. Wilhelm (1864–1916) was a merchant in Saalfeld, Rudolf (1866–1943) became a pharmacist and took over the soup factory, and Arndt (1869–1938) was a pastor in Münchengosserstädt.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hildburghausen - the center of Europe for ready-made soups. In: A page for Hildburghausen. Retrieved January 15, 2020 .
  2. ^ A b Uwe Spiekermann: Artificial food. Nutrition in Germany, 1840 until today . Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2018, ISBN 978-3-525-31719-8 , pp. 120/121
personal data
SURNAME Scheller, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scheller, Friedrich Heinrich Rudolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pharmacist and food manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1822
PLACE OF BIRTH Hildburghausen
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1900
Place of death Münchengosserstädt