FRITSCH Brand Guidelines: The 1926 Farm-Machine Firm That Turned to Bakery Lines

Three generations of Fritsch.

FRITSCH did not begin in bakeries, or in Germany. German Wikipedia says Alois Fritsch founded the company in 1926 at Wiese, in what was then Czechoslovakia, to develop and make agricultural machinery and accessories. After the Second World War it was refounded, in 1948, at Markt Einersheim in Lower Franconia, the market town near Kitzingen that has been its base ever since. German Wikipedia’s article on the town says farming receded there in the twentieth century as large employers settled, with Fritsch expanding around the middle of the century.

Bakery work came four years later. In 1952, German Wikipedia says, machines and equipment for bakeries joined the range, and Alois’s son Adolf Fritsch entered the business. In 1954 the firm developed the Rollfix dough sheeter, a name it would go on developing for decades, with further automation and add-on equipment. Adolf became managing director in 1960.

The company reached outward in the same period. German Wikipedia dates its start in the American market to 1969, the year it also set up its own iron and metal foundry at Wiesentheid. France and Britain followed in 1982, and bakeries themselves were changing: as their work became more automated in the 1970s, Fritsch brought out the AT Varioline make-up table, and in 1981 it added freezing equipment for bakers to its programme and showed its first automatic Rollfix.

Management stayed in the family. Klaus Fritsch joined his father Adolf in management in 1989 and took over in 1996, according to the same account, and Packaging Europe described the company in 2019 as owned by the fourth generation of the family.

Rolling, laminating, twisting.

The technical story centres on how dough is handled. In 1979, German Wikipedia says, a newly developed satellite head for laminating systems introduced a concept the company called Soft-processing, aimed at treating dough gently. German Wikipedia lists the company’s products as sheeting machines, laminating systems for puff and Danish doughs, make-up lines, cooling and proofing belts, and complete production lines for pizza, croissants, pretzels, rustic breads and rolls, fine pastries, thin doughs and toast bread, serving businesses from small craft bakeries to industrial plants.

A run of named machines marks the following decades. The Croissantomat 2000 appeared in 1982, and in 1987 the firm developed a modular concept for large industrial lines, Impressa, followed in 1989 by Impressa bread, for Mediterranean-style speciality breads, and the fine-pastry line Euroline. The Laminator 3000 and the Easyline arrived in 1996, with the CTR system for rolled pastries; a CSTR system for industrial croissants came in 1998.

Pretzels got a machine of their own. After long development, German Wikipedia says, the automatic pretzel-looping machine Multitwist reached the market in 1999. The Multiline, for making dough sheets from all kinds of dough in a small space, followed in 2002, the Multicut in 2003 and the STR croissant machine in 2006.

Behind the products sat a growing organisation. In 1992 the company opened the Fritsch Technology Center with a demonstration bakery; Packaging Europe described the centre in 2019 as a place for customer trials and custom recipes. A US subsidiary followed in 1996, and in 1997 Fritsch UK and Fritsch BTT, set up for turnkey projects. Fritsch Italia was founded in 1999, Fritsch Russia in 2006 and Fritsch Polska in 2007, according to German Wikipedia. Today’s technology centre is the World of Bakery, which German Wikipedia places at Kitzingen.

Dough, rollers and test bakeries.

Bakery equipment makers sell machines, but what they show is mostly dough. The picture language of the trade is familiar: dough sheets gliding along white belts, laminated croissant lines, rack ovens opening on golden trays, deck ovens with stone soles, and flour-dusted hands beside stainless machines.

The test bakery is part of that presentation. Rademaker invites customers to its Technology Centre in Culemborg to try their products with its technologists and test bakers, and it runs an Experience Centre near Chicago; Sveba Dahlen says its Bakery Innovation Centers let distributors and customers test its machines using their own recipes and ingredients, with master bakers on hand. In both cases the offer is to see a recipe run on the machine.

The calendar runs on trade fairs, and that is where the machines are seen working. iba, held in Düsseldorf in 2025, returns to Munich from 24 to 28 October 2027, its organiser says. At the 2025 show, World Bakers reported, a Glimek bread line was to be demonstrated live with dough several times a day. Sigep World meets in Rimini in January 2027, IBIE in Las Vegas in September 2028, and südback at Messe Stuttgart. Sirha Bake & Snack, where the old Europain web address now leads, is next in Paris in January 2028.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each maker: who founded it, who owns it, and where it says its machines are made. Company statements are given as company statements. Where a maker publishes no brand colours or typefaces, the palette and type here are our own interpretation.

Insolvency, MULTIVAC and Iphofen.

The family era ended in 2019. German Wikipedia says the company filed for insolvency at the district court in Würzburg on 16 April 2019. On 3 July that year Packaging Europe reported that MULTIVAC, the packaging-machinery group of Wolfertschwenden in the Allgäu, was taking over the FRITSCH Group, with effect from 1 August 2019, subject to cartel approval. The takeover did not include land and buildings, German Wikipedia says. After the Federal Cartel Office agreed, the business became Fritsch Bakery Technologies GmbH & Co. KG, part of the MULTIVAC Group.

The logic, as Packaging Europe set it out, was complete bakery production lines from a single source. Manufacturing and development were to stay at Markt Einersheim, and FRITSCH was to run as a stand-alone business, with a MULTIVAC management team appointed alongside the existing one, its products sold through MULTIVAC’s worldwide network. FoodTechBiz reported in February 2025 that Dr Nico Haßmann, who had held the role on an interim basis since March 2024, had been appointed Managing Director Sales.

The next chapter is a change of address. In March 2024 FoodTechBiz and Industrial News reported that MULTIVAC had bought about 7.6 hectares in a new industrial park at Iphofen, to bring together operations spread over five sites in Kitzingen and Markt Einersheim, with the World of Bakery moving too. The plan then was to start building at the end of 2025 and move in the third quarter of 2027. FoodTechBiz reported that the groundbreaking took place on 18 July 2026, with completion now planned for the second quarter of 2028. Dr Haßmann called it especially important “in this, our 100th year as a company.”

The company writes its name in capitals, FRITSCH, German Wikipedia notes. Under MULTIVAC the full name became Fritsch Bakery Technologies, so the founder’s surname still leads it a century after 1926.

For a design guide, FRITSCH shows how a family name can carry through an insolvency and a change of owner. Compare MULTIVAC, its parent, and Rondo, the Swiss sheeter maker founded in 1948. For this guide we use a slate, a flour and a pretzel brown with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep FRITSCH’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.