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Concept
Vorwerk (company)
Summary
Vorwerk & Co. KG, trading as Vorwerk, is an international diversified corporate group headquartered in Wuppertal, Germany. Vorwerk was founded in 1883. The main business is the direct distribution of various products like household appliances such as Thermomix, a kitchen appliance, and Kobold vacuum cleaners, fitted kitchens and cosmetics.
The company, which is family-owned and operated as a limited partnership, reported having 12,000 full-time employees and over 590,000 self-employed sales representatives in more than 70 countries worldwide as of 2014. The largest proportion of sales representatives (546,000) work for the US-based subsidiary JAFRA Cosmetics. The company posted revenue of €2.8 billion in 2014.
In 1883, the Barmer Teppichfabrik Vorwerk & Co was founded by the brothers Carl (1847–1907) and Adolf Vorwerk. That very same year, the brothers parted ways again and Carl Vorwerk continued to run the company. The firm initially manufactured high-quality carpets and upholstery fabrics, and later also the looms used to make them – first under an English patent, and then under an improved proprietary patent.
Carl Vorwerk’s son, Carl Jr. (1878–1904), was to be his successor as company director, but he died just a few months after taking the helm in 1903. Thus, upon the death of the company founder in 1907, his son-in-law, August Mittelsten Scheid (1871–1955), became sole managing partner. Under his leadership, the company diversified following the First World War, taking up the production of gear units and electric motors for gramophones as its military research efforts halted.
As radio grew in popularity in the 1920s, gramophone sales dropped precipitously. This dire situation gave rise to the birth of the “Vorwerk Kobold” in 1929: chief engineer Engelbert Gorissen developed out of a gramophone motor a high-performance electric upright vacuum cleaner. On 25 May 1930, a patent was granted for the Kobold “Model 30”. At first, sales of what was at the time a completely unknown appliance in Germany were very poor, despite the relatively modest price of 20 Reichsmarks.
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