Gustav Ehlert celebrates his 100th anniversary
100 years of partner to the food industry. Gustav Ehlert GmbH & Co. KG, based in Verl, will celebrate this anniversary in 2024. Founded as a butcher's supplies wholesaler, the Ehlert company supplied craft businesses and meat and sausage production companies that are traditionally strongly anchored in the Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Gütersloh and Versmold areas. Customers now also include companies from other industries such as delicatessen manufacturers, bakeries and producers of frozen products. Today Ehlert supplies food producers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland with spices, seasoning mixtures and consumables such as protective clothing, packaging materials and cleaning products.
“The company was founded in 1924 by my grandfather Gustav Ehlert on Gütersloher Kirchstrasse, but moved to Blessenstätte just a year later,” explains Martin Ehlert, the company’s senior boss. During the global economic crisis from 1930 until its end in 1934, the company founder's wife, Hedwig Ehlert, ran the business. Due to Gustav Ehlert being drafted into the Wehrmacht, Hedwig Ehlert took over management of the company again in 1944/45. In March 1945, the Ehlert company's warehouse buildings and the residential building were destroyed or damaged by bombing raids on Gütersloh.
Repairs to damaged buildings began immediately after the end of the war. With the currency reform in 1948, trading business also picked up speed again. New storage and business premises were built between 1950 and 1957 at the old location in downtown Gütersloh. “In 1950, the founder’s son, my father Karl-Gustav Ehlert, joined the company. I myself grew up in the shop and warehouse,” says Martin Ehlert, now 69 years old. The years of the “economic miracle” were also years of growth for the Ehlert company. Between 1960 and 1969 sales grew from 1,4 million to 4,5 million German marks. The range of butchery supplies such as casings, spices, salt, meat grinders, knives and work clothing was systematically expanded. Larger machines such as meat cutters, mixing machines and smoking cabinets for butchers and sausage factories were added.
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| In-house exhibition at the Ehlert company in 1966, on the right the company founder Gustav Ehlert. |
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| Shop window of the Ehlert company in the Gütersloh Blessenstätte, around 1960. |
In 1973 the company built a new warehouse and office building on Wagenfeldstrasse, south of Gütersloh city center. In 1980, current managing director Martin Ehlert joined the company. In addition to expanding business activities, he ensured modernization and digitalization of operational processes.
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Location on Wagenfeldstrasse |
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| New building at Lupinenweg 13 in Spexard |
The company's economic development and the food industry's efforts to concentrate required further adjustments to business operations. In addition to adjustments to the range, the number of employees also grew from twelve in 1973 to 40 in 1994. In order to be able to continue its economic success, the Ehlert company moved into a new, larger warehouse and office building on Lupinenweg in Spexard in 1996. As early as 2012, the strategic orientation of the business as a supplier to ever-growing food manufacturers and the expansion of business activities abroad made it necessary to build another new warehouse and office space. In 2013, after being based in Gütersloh for almost 90 years, the company moved to the industrial area in Verl-Sürenheide and invested 7,5 million euros there. In 2017 the location was expanded again with a new goods entrance.
And there are further growth plans at the location in Verl. Philipp Ehlert, who joined the management of the family business in 2019 as the 4th generation, reports: “We are currently planning a 40 meter high, fully automated high-bay warehouse.” Tobias Ortkras, third in the group The company's management is pleased that we can also look positively into the future in our anniversary year: “We currently employ 98 competent employees and have 18.000 items available for immediate delivery. Expert advice and fast delivery to our customers: this is what our customers value and this is also our future goal.”
