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Hamberger: From Matchstick to Parquet Star
Hamberger Industriewerke harnesses the power of innovation created by a 138-year history.
Tradition hand in hand with progress: This is the philosophy that has guided Hamberger Industriewerke ever since the early days. The company, which is meanwhile run by the fourth and fifth generations of the Hamberger family, harnesses the power of innovation created by a 138-year history. It all started in 1866 when Franz Paul Hamberger laid the foundations for today's globally oriented 'Industriewerke' by starting the production of sulphur matches. With the brand name HARO, the company has evolved over the decades into the German parquet market leader and, with the Flooring, Sanitary, Sports and Farming & Forestry divisions, into the largest employer in the Rosenheim district.
There is hardly another company that reflects the industrialisation of the Rosenheim district as a consequence of the technical revolution as clearly as Hamberger Industriewerke does. The company founder Franz Paul Hamberger demonstrated a keen eye for the signs of the times: When the first train arrived in Rosenheim on October 24, 1857, he foresaw the end of freight traffic on the Inn river. He therefore gave up his barge business and turned to the production of sulphur matches, which were initially made by hand. The match splint came from the Bavarian Forest and the chemicals from Rieder’s pharmacy in Rosenheim. Already in 1868, the pioneering spirit announced the foundation of a matchstick factory to the “honoured merchants and shopkeepers” in the local newspaper, the “Rosenheimer Anzeiger.” “Supported by the necessary funds, I considered no sacrifice too great to purchase all the necessary machinery of the latest design,” Hamberger advertised. The purchase of Hamberger’s first frame saw that could convert thick logs into sawn timber soon led to an additional business area, the sawmill. As yet another sideline, the business-minded pioneer founded a brickworks. The newly developed Hofmann circular kiln enabled him to produce high-quality building materials. After the founder's death in 1912, the heirs Franz Paul Hamberger II and Max Hamberger continued the course of sustainable growth—also by starting the fabrication of toilet seats. When Max Hamberger died only two years later, hard times began, which were also marked by World War I. Franz Paul Hamberger II managed to successfully steer the company through those politically and economically difficult times. The “Industriewerke” of today owes its company-own land to him. When Franz Paul Hamberger II passed away in 1945, the third generation had long taken over the helm: Franz Hamberger jun. had joined the company in 1913, Max Hamberger jun. in 1918 and Rudolf Hamberger in 1923 on graduating from the university. The three of them ran the company and built it up again with energy and hard work after the heavy air raid in 1944.
The times of the economic wonder experienced prosperous growth as well as modernisations of the brickworks, the sawmill, the toilet seat manufacture and the matchstick production. Automation began to take hold: 13 to 14 million bricks per year were produced in the brickworks in the seventies. At peak times, up to 70 million matches were manufactured per day, just to give a few examples. When the match monopoly ended in Germany in 1983 and the demand decreased, the fourth generation in the persons of Peter and Rudolf Hamberger, who had been running the company since 1971, discontinued the production.
With a keen sense for market gaps and new forms of production, the entrepreneurs recognised early on the opportunities offered by an industrial parquet manufacture and were the first German company to produce engineered hardwood flooring. The ingenious idea to make the “floor of kings” an affordable luxury by employing efficient and cost-saving production methods, marked the onset of engineered hardwood floorboards and sports flooring made by Hamberger. The triumphal march of the HARO floor covering brand began, which eventually made Hamberger the market leader in the German parquet market. HARO stands for individual wood floor design (parquet, laminate, veneer and cork flooring and linoleum parquet), for WC seats made of wood and plastic and for sports flooring. 22,000 square metres of ready-to-use, factory-prefinished parquet flooring and over 40,000 square metres of laminate flooring leave the production plant every day.
The years before and after the turn of the millennium have seen many renovations and new buildings on the company site, the latest automation technologies have been introduced, quality and environmental management systems have been implemented, and Hamberger has increasingly become a global player.
Approx. 1,300 people are employed today in the four company divisions—Flooring, Sports, Sanitary and Farming & Forestry. Hamberger Industriewerke has an annual turnover of approx. 200 million euros. The export share has meanwhile increased to over 35 percent: Hamberger products are exported to more than 50 countries around the world. In 2002, the fifth generation joined the company management: Dr. Peter M. Hamberger is leading the company into the future with his father Peter Hamberger.
How much the company, for all its innovativeness and international expansion, has remained committed to its roots and tradition becomes apparent in a curious feature: Hamberger Industriewerke is still running its own agricultural estate. Established in times of need in World War I in order to provide the staff with milk, “Gut Filzenhof” developed into a model estate which today specialises in raising cattle. There, Hamberger also runs its own forestry business as a tribute to the raw material on which the company's success is based—timber. The wood is still cut today in the company-own sawmill, where huge logging trucks and log stacks as high as houses dominate the scene.
How the Brand Name HARO Came into Existence.
The brand name HARO stands for “Hamberger Rosenheim” – even though the head office of the company is located in nearby Stephanskirchen. The company founder Franz Paul Hamberger had begun the matchstick production there in 1866, but was soon forced to “emigrate” to Rosenheim because the authorities had objected to his fabrication. The beginning of the industrial production thus started in Rosenheim's Innstrasse. There are no records stating how long the matchsticks were produced there. The fact is that Hamberger very soon built the sawmill, the matchstick factory and the brickworks on Stephanskirchen's Ziegelberg. All the business areas located there were substantially expanded at the beginning of the 20th century, since that location had proved very favourable due to the vicinity of the railroad and of water power for energy production.
Source: Oberbayerisches Volksblatt |
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