Petkus: A history of innovation

The origins of the Germany company Petkus go back to when young Christian Friedrich Röber opened his first forge in 1852. From the very beginning, Röber specialised in the manufacture of agricultural machinery, including malt cutters, choppers, beet cutters, ploughs, harrows and manual threshing machines.

By 1874, the first factory was built alongside the river Erbstrom to take advantage of the free hydropower. The factory was soon converted to steam power, which remained the norm when Röber’s sons, Call and Rudolf, took over the business, and changed its name to CF Röber Söhne and began to specialise in the manufacture of seed and grain cleaning equipment.
 

The company continued to thrive and grow over the following years, even managing to flourish in a period where the benefits to yield of seed cleaning were not fully appreciated by the marketplace.

The iron curtain years
During the turbulent post-war years with a divided Germany, Petkus Technologies proved to be so unique and exceptional that the company managed to survive difficult times and political chaos – from the expropriation following the Second World War to the privatisation following the reunification of Germany.

Reunification
In November 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and the process of the reunification of the two Germanies began. And by 1994, Mark Scholze and Luca Celeghini decided to carry on the tradition of the international company's prosperous formative decades by reuniting Röber with Petkus. The company is currently located in Wutha-Farnroda.

By 1994, Mark Scholze and Luca Celeghini decided to carry on the tradition of the international company's prosperous formative decades by reuniting Röber with Petkus. The company is now located in Wutha-Farnroda.

By 2011, to honour the Petkus founder, the Röber Institute Innovation Centre (R&D) was established.

Today, the company possess over 350 employees working on sales, service and engineering in hubs in 23 countries. The company has installed over 200,000 cleaning machines and 2,000 complete seed-lines in the past 40 years. Double-digit average growth rate of the Petkus Group in the last ten years demonstrates the trust that customers place in their competence and proficiency.

Read more HERE.

 

The Global Miller
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