From
startup
to global
player.
Our company history is full of fascinating stories on the long road from start-up to global player. Full of ups and downs, ingredients and additives, ideas and visions, courageous and sometimes risky steps. Here we would like to thank all the many people inside and outside our company family, without whose trust, efforts and creativity this story would never have been possible.

1980
The step into independence. And onto thin ice.

In 1980, at age 44, Volkmar Wywiol was looking for a way to go into business for himself – whatever it took! He wanted to live out his ideas, and his joy in creating, on his own terms. He took the plunge with the purchase of the tiny Sternchemie company, although its business field of “thread tapping aids” was small and completely unknown to him. The company cost DM 300,000 (€ 150,000), which he did not have, and no bank was willing to finance the start-up. But he managed to convince owner Joachim Schliemann to accept instalment payments over the next ten years. As security he made over to him the rights to his life insurance. Thin ice!
1980
Or: Money doesn’t stink.
1981

1986
1981

1988
Getting started in the enzyme business. With more courage than knowledge.

1990

1992
Lecithin. World market leadership overnight – with culture shocks to spare.
1995
Hydrosol? Hydrocolloid? We’re in!

1999
We build the compounding plant of the future: STERNMAID.

It started small with seven employees, of whom two were trainees. Today the company has over 350 employees in two operating units, working in shifts, and specialises in compounding, granulating, coating and packaging food ingredients and nutritional supplements.
2003
Applications technology, the supreme discipline.
In the Stern Technology Center over 100 technologists – grain scientists, dairy technicians, deli experts, master bakers and butchers, cooks, flavouring specialists, lecithin and enzyme experts – work together on the foods and feeds of tomorrow, true to our motto, “We Future Food”.
2003
DeutscheBack conquers the world.

2004


Today more than 100 million bars leave the plant every year, and more production capacity is on the way.
2006
Vitamins promote growth: Founding of SternVitamin.

2010
The perfect final touch: OlbrichtArom.

2011
Generation change: Torsten Wywiol becomes Group CEO.
2018
2020

1995-2020
and applications technology for functional systems for food and animal feed, in Holland, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, India, Malaysia, China, Dubai, Kenia, Mexico and the USA. Over 600 people work in our foreign subsidiaries, and are a highly appreciated part of the Stern-Wywiol company family.
2020
