Henkel has been a successful entity for over 140 years

Fritz Henkel founded the company in 1876.

It is tough for a manufacturing company to stay in business for years. So when one remains successful for more than a century, it is clearly doing something right. Henkel – which provides top adhesive solutions in this country through Henkel Canada Corporation – has been around for over 140 years.

When Fritz Henkel first established the company in Germany in 1876, he scarcely could have imagined the global force that his business would grow to become.

From laundry to tea importing

Although Henkel is known today as a major manufacturer of top adhesive solutions – with such renowned brands as Loctite – the company has had a colourful history of providing many other products and services. The company began as a laundry-detergent producer and soon expanded to making tea. In 1887, Henkel developed Germany’s first brand-name tea and would go on to become one of the country’s largest tea importers. Henkel sold its tea until 1913.

And that was just the beginning for Henkel, which went on to make a wide variety of products over the first half of the 20th Century. In 1902, the company launched a successful brand of fertilizer, Flora. Another major venture for the company was its Poly Color brand of liquid hair colouring, which became a huge hit in postwar West Germany.

One could see 1929 as a turning point for Henkel, because that was when the company introduced its first cold-water soluble glue, Malatrocken. This was just one of many successful adhesive products that have since come to define Henkel. Forty years later, the company would invent the world’s first glue stick, Pritt Klebe-Stift, which would revolutionize how adhesives are used. In 2001, Pritt was tested in outer space, making it the first adhesive brand to receive the seal of space-proof quality.

And the Henkel story continues. Today, the corporation owns about 170 production sites in 55 countries, generating more than 85 per cent of its sales outside Germany. Canadian businesses benefits from the company’s top adhesive solutions with brands like Loctite, Schwarzkopf, and Persil – all backed by Henkel’s decades of experience.

To learn more, contact Henkel.

• Tweet