A family business

Hamburg, 1898 founding year of the company Tuchel and son by Gustav Tuchel.

Today Managed by Peter Tuchel and Mirko Tuchel in the fourth and fifth generation since 2017. The head office with production, warehouse and office has been in Hamburg since its foundation.

Originally the company traded in spices, herbs and dried fruits. Honey, today's core business, followed a few years later in the 1950s as the first European importer of the particularly aromatic bee honey from Mexico. In the years that followed Tuchel & Sohn has also become one of the largest European importers of organic and conventional Canadian maple syrup. Today Tuchel & Sohn is active as an importer, processor, distributor and bottler of a wide range of natural sweeteners.

(Almost) all products are available in organic, Fairtrade, Halal, Kosher and Naturland quality. In addition, through their international network, Tuchel & Sohn also cover special customer wishes that may differ from the standard product range.

A distinguishing attribute of Tuchel & Sohn are the long-standing partners for customers from various industries, including the food processing industry and food retailers, who can rely on their extensive expertise. The focus is on quality, continuity and reliability in all their activities.

As a member of the Hamburger Waren Verein, the German Honey Association and as an exhibitor at various trade fairs such as Anuga, Biofach, Sial, Fi Europe, they are happy to be your reliable and personal contact for all sweet things.

We met with Mirko Tuchel, managing director for an interview. Take glimpse behind the scenes.

It depends on the perspective from which tradition and modernity are viewed. In many areas of the company, the transitions between tradition and modernity are fluid and can be implemented differently by my father and myself, so there is no contradiction. In this way, different working methods and approaches, which could be described as traditional or modern, can be applied in everyday working life and complement each other.

In general, by tradition I understand the sum of all components of our company that have been decisive for the company's success to date and have led the company through ups and downs since 1898. The challenge for a new generation in a management position is therefore to optimize existing business processes within the framework of today's possibilities without neglecting the previous guarantees of success that are reflected in tradition. Under this premise, we can shape sustainable modernization as a generation-spanning dual leadership.

There are many things that make me proud of the company, but most of all it is the long history over five generations and the many moments when my ancestors had to realign the company due to different external influences in order to continue to be successful. In my opinion, it is this sense for the changing market environment over the decades and the agile way of working that make many small and medium-sized family businesses successful in the long term.

The market for natural sweeteners continues to grow, especially in the organic segment. The shift of the organic segment from the niche to the mainstream is generating increasing sales, but also poses the challenges already familiar from the conventional market. In our industry, customers also expect just-in-time delivery, which we can only guarantee through a high storage and production volume. A high availability of goods allows us to react flexibly to customer requirements.

As with other family businesses, our corporate activities are characterised by sustainable thinking. We maintain long-term relationships both with our customers and with our suppliers, which make our success possible in the first place. You can always see suppliers in the European competition who try to establish themselves in the natural sweetener segment but are not aware of essential quality criteria and do not follow their implementation. I therefore see a very high level of quality awareness, our extensive product knowledge and the various product certifications (Organic, Fairtrade, Naturland, Kosher, Halal), which set us apart from other suppliers, as an essential distinction.

The majority of our product range are natural viscous sweeteners, with which we have many years of experience. Expanding our product range in this segment therefore presents us with familiar challenges. On the one hand, we ensure consistently high quality through long-standing supplier relationships, which have internalised our quality standards for many years. On the other hand, we are constantly concerned with the risks of our goods and carry out extensive goods analyses for incoming goods and production. In rare cases of deviations, we try to solve these constructively with our suppliers and to remedy them for the future.

The demand for private label products is growing in all our target markets across our entire product range. The aforementioned investments are also aimed at this market in order to expand our existing activities. For some time now, we have also been offering all our products as private label products in consumer packs, but we have not been able to meet large multinational tenders, particularly for honeys, due to a lack of capacity. Our customers can then benefit from our direct procurement at the origin, quality assurance, refinement and bottling from a single expert source.

Of course, we can be reached via the usual forms of communication, which can be viewed at www.tuchel-sohn.com, and are happy to receive any enquiries. Our in-house exhibitions are Anuga, Sial and Biofach. At irregular intervals we can also be found at other international food fairs.

Thank you for the interview and your time. I think the reader will be able to get a good first impression of the traditional business Tuchel & Sohn GmbH.

Tuchel & Sohn GmbH
Hermann-Buck-Weg 6
22309 Hamburg, Germany

Phone: +49 (0)40 639007 0
Telefax: +49 (0)40 639007 77
Email:  contact@tuchel-sohn.com
www.tuchel-sohn.com