Sprengel (company)

Trademark and lettering on a factory building in Hanover

Sprengel was a German food company that existed from 1851 to 1986 and mainly produced chocolate in Hanover . The brand of the same name is used to this day.

Company history

Sprengel chocolate factory in Hanover around 1895

Invoice form from 1885 showing the work

Änne Kokens Art Nouveau - advertisement for Sprengel's “Cremosa Chocolade” in the Illustrirten Zeitung , 1911

The company was founded in 1851 by Carl August Bernhard Sprengel under the company B. Sprengel & Co. in Harburg near Hamburg . Two years later the company moved to Hanover , where it was promoted to supplier to the royal court . Sprengel's trademarks have been a beehive and the color orange from its inception . In addition to the classic 100 g chocolate bar, other confectionery products with a chocolate coating were also part of the Sprengel range. The brand became particularly well-known for its refreshment bars . In 1936, Sprengel was recognized as an important company for the military economy , as it produced the Scho-Ka-Kola food . After the Second World War , chocolate production was resumed in 1948 and Sprengel developed into the largest company in the industry.

The entry of the US food company Nabisco in 1967 marked the beginning of the end of the Sprengel era. Five years later, Nabisco increased its stake to just under 100%. In 1979, Hans Imhoff, as the owner of the Cologne chocolate company Stollwerck, took over the Hanover company from Bernhard Sprengel , a descendant of the company's founder. The main plant in the north of the city was closed just a year later. Sprengel has been a 100% subsidiary of Stollwerck since 1986. Even after the last Sprengel plant in Hanover-Vinnhorst was closed in 2001, the Sprengel brand is still used today, but no longer exclusively for chocolate products.

Chocolate products with the brand name Sprengel have been sold as a licensed exclusive brand at Aldi Nord since 2006 ; they are produced by Ludwig Schokolade GmbH & Co. KG , which in turn belongs to the Krüger Group . Since 2011, the Stollwerck-affiliated company Chocolat Alprose SA in Caslano-Lugano, Switzerland , has been the owner of the rights to the “SPRENGEL SEIT 1851” brand .

Sprengel in Hanover today

Former suitcase factory of the Grebenstein Brothers on the "Sprengel site", around 2008

The name Sprengel is still present in Hanover. On the one hand through the Sprengel site in the former main factory in the north of the city, which has developed into an alternative district after riots and squatting in the early 1980s, and on the other hand through the Sprengel Museum of Modern Art, which was owned by the passionate after the factory was sold in 1979 Art collector Bernhard Sprengel was donated.

literature

N / A : Sweet progress. In: Der Spiegel , year 1967, issue 20 (from May 8, 1967), p. 78 f.

Waldemar R. Röhrbein : Sprengel - B. Spr. & Co. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (ed.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 581.

Kristina Huttenlocher: Sprengel. The history of the chocolate factory. zu Klampen Verlag, Springe 2016, ISBN 978-3-86674-529-2 .

Ute Wieners: Sprengel for everyone. Edition Region + Geschichte, Neustadt 2017, ISBN 978-3-930726-32-5