From oats for everyday breakfast to cakes and waffles for celebrations, Dr. Oetker has for generations served customers from around the world with their products. A brand that was started by producing baking powders to create perfect cakes for the Oetker family is now catering to families all over the world for more than 130 years in more than 40 countries. Dr. August Oetker, is the man behind this legacy business that was started in Germany and has now travelled the world.
About the inventor, Dr. August Oetker
Dr. August Oetker was a pharmacist who started a family business by opening a pharmacy in Bielefeld. In 1891, after much experimentation, he succeeded in developing the decisive recipe for baking powder that could create perfectly spongy and fluffy cakes every time.
In 1900, Dr. Oetker opened their first factory in Lutterstrasse in Bielefeld, Germany and began production on an industrial scale. The next two years saw a massive expansion in production units and in 1903, Dr. August Oetker’s “process of producing durable baking powder or ready-to-bake flour” was then patented by the Imperial Patent Office as number 144289.
Before the First World War, the company became the largest manufacturer of baking powder in continental Europe. In 1950, a second production plant was built in Brackwede with modern infrastructure and over the years the area of the unit was expanded.
How the family took the business forward
August Oetker’s grandson Rudolf August Oetker oversaw the business from 1944 to 1981, during which time it had its greatest expansion. Rudolf von Ribbentrop (1921–2019), the son of Joachim von Ribbentrop and Anna Elisabeth Henkell of the Wiesbaden wine dynasty and a wartime Waffen SS officer like Oetker, worked as a director for the Oetker family’s private bank. By acquiring numerous businesses globally, the corporation increased its presence abroad. The fourth generation of the Oetker family took over when Rudolf Oetker resigned from his post as president.
In 2010, August Oetker’s brother Richard Oetker assumed control as CEO. Richard Oetker owns 12.5% of Dr. Oetker, an $8 billion conglomerate with interests in food, beverages, financial services, and hotels as per Forbes. When a proxy battle was still proceeding in front of arbitrators in 2015, the parties decided to hire a different CEO who is not part of the lineage, when Richard resigned, which he did in 2017. As per Forbes 2021 data, he had a net worth of $2.8 billion.
Dr.Oetker has become one of the top and most trusted brands in countries all over the world. The Indian market has done exceptionally well for them as per a report in The Economic Times. According to the corporation, India is now the largest nation in the regions of Africa, Asia, and Australia with a turnover of Rs 535 crore in calendar year 2022.
