Schulte-Ufer

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Schulte-Ufer letterhead, 1908

The Josef Schulte-Ufer KG is a family-owned manufacturer of cookware, located in Sundern . The company's products have been marketed under the SUS brand (“Schulte-Ufer Sundern”) since 1886.

history

Early years

Three-leaf clover from 1886 with the letters SUS

Schulte-Ufer was founded in 1886 by Josef Schulte. He was initially employed as a packer at the Sundern company Brumberg. As a part-time job, he and friends have been making wall moldings for hanging firing devices in his parents' house since 1885. After developing other well-salable products, including extendable curtain rods, he went into business for himself and founded Josef Schulte-Ufer KG in 1886 with start-up capital of 30 marks. He chose the addition “shore” to avoid confusion of names. The three-leaf clover with the letters SUS was also created in 1886 and is still the company's trademark, albeit in a modernized form.

Josef Schulte soon established business relationships with wholesalers in Iserlohn , Elberfeld , Hagen and other places. The company had its own representatives relatively early on. In addition to the production of own goods, trading in foreign metal goods was also carried out.

Relatively soon the rooms in the parents' house were too small and Schulte-Ufer had a factory built. The company focused on the manufacture of pull-out curtain rods. With the affiliation of a relative's metal goods business, kettles could also be manufactured in-house. On September 22, 1898, the company was entered as a limited partnership in the commercial register of the Arnsberg District Court . The company experienced an upswing with the opening of the small railway line to Neheim-Hüsten from 1900. Schulte's company was successful and expanded strongly, thanks in part to the expansion of the product range by the founder. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, he relocated his company to its current location, where new and larger buildings with improved production and storage conditions could be created.

After Josef Schulte's unexpected death on November 7, 1904, his wife Therese Schulte-Ufer continued the company. After she got married again, her husband Friedrich Rohe took over the management of the company in 1907. Even before the marriage, Rohe had been an important employee of the entrepreneur. The company is still owned by the family today (as of 2020). The success led to the fact that further companies were founded in Sundern, not least by former employees of Schulte-Ufer. There was a price war between the manufacturers of curtain rods. This could obviously be ended by agreements between manufacturers.

In a self-disclosure, Rohe stated that the total assets were well over 200,000 Reichsmarks. The turnover in 1908 was 305,000 Reichsmarks. The value of the property was 60,000 Reichsmarks. The company employed 60 workers and had modern machines. In the following years the company continued to flourish. This made it possible to convert energy generation from steam power to electric motors. The factory was hardly affected by the strike of the Christian Metalworkers' Association in Sundern in 1910, and the union's influence was still weak in 1912.

Crisis and rationalization

At the end of the 1920s, sales dropped significantly. The global economic crisis also hit Schulte-Ufer hard. Production was only a few days a week and many workers had to be laid off. Rohe turned to a management consultancy to rationalize operational processes. For his company as a manufacturer of non-essential consumer goods, however, this was not enough to stop the fall in prices. Entrepreneurs with comparable product ranges such as WMF joined forces in the so-called “cake plate commission” to agree prices. As a result of the economic recovery, the company was also able to overcome the crisis. By 1934, the value of the company buildings without machines rose to a quarter of a million Reichsmarks. After Rohe's death, his sons took over the company. The founder's son had previously left and took over one of the original company buildings.

Schulte-Ufer now also produced warming jugs and electrical appliances. During the Second World War the company produced armaments. Much of the factory burned down in 1943.

Economic boom

After the war, in 1948 the company continued the pre-war era and expanded its product range to include kitchen and tableware. During the time of the economic miracle, sales rose sharply. At times, the plant reached its capacity limit. Our own fleet of vehicles transported the goods abroad, in particular to Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Instead of warming jugs, vacuum jugs were produced. Schulte-Ufer achieved the highest turnover in the 1960s. Electric grills were now also being made. At the beginning of the 1970s there was another major fire. In place of the declining sales of electrical appliances, more and more cookware and tableware appeared.

Restructuring since 1990s

Since the 1990s, sales have fallen noticeably and part of the production has been relocated abroad. In January 2005, the company completely stopped its own production, laid off the majority of its 30 employees and since then has only been marketing products made abroad, which continue to be sold under the traditional SUS brand. In 2014 the number of employees rose again to around 50; At that time, production was largely carried out in Great Britain , Korea and China .

Schulte-Ufer has long been considered a mid-price brand in the industry. Like its competitors, the company now also offers Fissler and WMF products in the higher price segment.

Awards

Josef Schulte-Ufer KG has received several awards, including in 2019 from Focus Money as "Industry Winner Kitchen Supplies".

literature

  • Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. pp. 319-328

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Schulte-Ufer company. In: schulteufer.de. Retrieved February 5, 2020 .
  2. ^ Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. p. 320
  3. ↑ Joint register portal of the federal states : District Court Arnsberg HRA 1095 - Josef Schulte-Ufer, Metallwarenfabrik Accessed on February 6, 2020.
  4. ^ Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. p. 320
  5. ^ Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. p. 320
  6. ^ Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. p. 324
  7. ^ Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. p. 324
  8. ^ Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. p. 325
  9. ^ Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. p. 321
  10. ^ Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. pp. 325f.
  11. ^ Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. p. 326
  12. ^ Maria Rohe: Schulte-Ufer in Sundern. In: Kiepe, plow and vice. Economic life in the Sauerland. Arnsberg, 1999. p. 326
  13. ↑ Christiane Hoinka: Schulte-Ufer finished production. In: welt.de . January 30, 2005, accessed February 5, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Stefan Pohl: Schulte-Ufer offers a unique selling point from the Sauerland. In: wp.de . September 19, 2014, accessed February 5, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Jan-Philipp Weers: Brand image confusion as a management challenge: On the problem of a memory-based and point of sale-induced confusing perception of brands . Gabler Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-8349-0949-7 , pp. 139 f . (also dissertation, University of Bremen 2007).
  16. ↑ Benchmark set. In: Enjoyment professional. The independent sector portal for trade and industry. Retrieved February 4, 2020 .