BREITNER –
HISTORY OF THE COMPANY
in Schwäbisch Hall
The roots of our company:
As early as the 1920s, Gottlob Breitner, the great-grandfather of today’s managing directors, had invented the first hand- and foot-operated apparatus for filling liquids.
The modern BREITNER company:
However, the cornerstone for today’s modern company was laid in 1961 by Hans Breitner, the grandfather of today’s managing directors Volker and Achim Breitner. Since then, BREITNER has continued to develop as a machine factory specialised in the packaging of liquid products.
Continuity in more ways than one:
- For 60 years now, the company has grown steadily with its products, technologically always at the leading edge.
- Each generation has placed responsibility in the hands of the next.
- BREITNER has always remained true to its location in Schwäbisch Hall.
The following brief outline shows the stages and formative people of our company history.
1924
Product brochure from the mid-1920s
He invented and produced a hand- and foot-operated filling machine that met with much interest and great willingness to buy in small businesses, for example among pharmacists.
The operator controls the filling process via the pedal. This leaves his hands free to place the bottle under the filling tube. When the bottle is full, a flap closes the product outlet and prevents the operator from overflowing the bottle due to carelessness.
The brochure shows how the great-grandfather of today’s managing directors already put the benefit for the customer in the foreground: clean filling process, economical use of the filling product.
In the text, the brochure focuses on the variety of possible containers and products. Gottlob Breitner promises to respond individually and flexibly to customers’ special requests, e.g. regarding the container design.
From a marketing point of view, the name of the machine is “Unerreicht (Unrivalled) – we still take our hats off to this today.
Gottlob Breitner sold his now quite successful small company at the end of the 1920s.
A replica of our trainees’ “Unerreicht (Unreached)” takes pride of place at our reception.
1. Januar 1961
The first company building at Mauerstraße 10 in Schwäbisch Hall.
He was undoubtedly inspired by the ideas of his father Gottlob.
The economic basis for the founding of the company lay in an electrical shop in Schwäbisch Hall, which supplied the inhabitants with electrotechnical products such as washing machines, fan heaters or electric burning scissors for ladies’ hairdressing.
1964
The company founder Hans Breitner in a photo from 1978.
In the same year, 1964, Hans Breitner exhibited his filling machine at the Anuga exhibition.
The basic design of a linear filling machine, such as the mechanical piston filling machine with 8 filling stations shown here, has proven itself to this day.
Such a business transfer was announced in the 1960s in the daily press – that was the style of the time.
Advertisement of the business handover in the Schwäbisch Hall daily press.
1966
1971
Hans Breitner’s son, Hans-Joachim, had studied mechanical engineering and after graduating had been able to gain important experience in another company outside his parents’ business.
He had already joined the family business in 1967 and had worked with his father ever since.
ab 1979
And so the company headquarters on Daimlerstraße also experienced several expansions, manufacturing capacities were expanded and the production halls were generously equipped with modern manufacturing machines – the latter a passion of Hans-Joachim Breitner.
1979 was the year in which Hans-Joachim Breitner took over the helm completely and was appointed Managing Director. His father Hans now slowly withdrew from the operative business – after 18 years of intensive development work.
The expansion of production and assembly capacities shows how strongly the company expanded under Hans-Joachim Breitner’s leadership. Because after 13 more years, production was once again bursting at the seams.
2001
2011
BREITNER celebrates its 50th anniversary
2014
In 2021, the company celebrates its 60th anniversary. In line with this jubilee, the new company building is inaugurated in June 2021.
