We don’t know what it means to stand still.
The history of our company dates back more than 150 years: one-and-a-half centuries in which the use and importance of chemical products has undergone enormous change. We have the vision of the owners and the amazing commitment of our staff to thank for the success we have enjoyed over the years.
STAUB & CO.
Everything stays in the family
In 1866, Johann Baptist Staub and Carl August Friedrich Berger register a wholesale company in “medicines and material goods” and start trading under the name Staub & Co. From 1899 they have permission to trade and store poisonous substances.
In 1908, Fritz Frank, who will later become a partner, joins the company as a travelling salesman. The company is growing continuously and is registered in the Commercial Register of the Royal District Court of Nuremberg in 1916.
In 1929, a 2,400-m2 premises with rail sidings is purchased in Ostendstrasse in Nuremberg.
By the end of the war, almost all the company’s facilities had been destroyed. Rebuilding begins in 1947. The Munich branch is opened just seven years later. By the 1960s and 70s, the company is bursting at the seams.
The former Rascher site in Nuremberg is taken over in 1983. The site on Ostendstrasse is developed and three rail tracks added in 1986. In the 1990s, the company enters a joint venture with a well-known partner from the chemicals distribution industry, and takes over the cleaning agent producer Fell and the chemicals dealer Swoboda in Hof. A new facility for storing ammonia and solvents is built in Munich.
2009: Staub & Co. Chemiehandelsgesellschaft and STOCKMEIER Chemie GmbH & Co. KG enter into a 50/50 partnership. The previous joint venture is terminated. Peter Stockmeier is appointed as an additional Managing Director. He, like the Frank family of owners, is a family entrepreneur who shares the same values.
F. B. Silbermann
From the horse and cart to a modern chemicals company
At around the same time as Johann Baptist Staub, Franz Baptist Silbermann starts a chemicals trading company in 1868. His fertilizer business is so successful that he builds his own fertilizer factory in Ludwigshafen in 1890, which he then sells to BASF in 1916.
Silbermann takes advantage of all the possibilities offered by modern technology. The Lüsshof plant is built in 1910. It uses the power of the River Mindel to produce wood pulp as a raw material for paper manufacturing. From the 1920s onwards, deliveries are made to customers by HGV. In 1928, a new factory is built in Offingen, Bavaria, for the production of superphosphate fertilizer.
Rebuilding begins after the Second World War. By 1956, the main plant in Augsburg is already employing 120 workers again. Twenty years later, plans to build a ring road force the company to relocate. The Gablingen site is opened in 1977, with the last divisions – production and administration – moving to Gablingen in 1985. The site has rail sidings and excellent transport links.
The facilities are continuously modernized and expanded over the course of the 1990s and 2000s. An area of around 20,000 m2 is added in 2002, and the new 1,300-m2 solid chemicals storage facility is completed in 2008.
In 2013, the collaboration leads to a merger. Staub & Co. acquires F. B. Silbermann and operates under the name STAUB & CO. – SILBERMANN GmbH. Andreas Frank is appointed Managing Director alongside Peter Stockmeier as the fourth generation of owners to manage the company. Together with customers, suppliers, and employees, they will write further chapters in the company’s successful history, and continue the legacy of the founders.
The »we« makes all the difference.
