WAS Germany

WAS Germany – From the Speicherstadt to a World Brand

Hamburg's Speicherstadt, where Werner A. Schulz founded his company in 1969, was no random location. It is the historic heart of Hamburg's free-trade port – a district that has stood for storage, commerce and the handling of high-quality goods since the Middle Ages. Coffee, spices, carpets, cocoa: for decades the most valuable goods flowing through the port of Hamburg were stored here. Werner A. Schulz brought a new focus into this environment: tools and equipment for professional kitchens – in a quality that matched Hamburg's standards of reliability and care.

From the outset WAS Germany placed not the product alone at the centre, but the service behind it. Supplying professional kitchens means supplying people who work under pressure every day – precisely and quickly, with little room for error. The tools they use must work at every touch. They must not drip, not jam, not slip. They must hold their shape, withstand the heat, survive the cleaning – not once, not ten times, but daily over years. This understanding has shaped WAS Germany from the beginning and never left it.

The First Catalogue – and What It Meant

Seven years after founding, in 1976, the first WAS Germany catalogue appeared. That was unusual in the industry at the time – not only because of its size and product variety, but above all because of one detail: it contained pictures. At a time when most suppliers listed their products only with product numbers and descriptions, WAS Germany showed its items. Professionals could see what they were ordering, not just read about it. This was a decision that translated the service concept into a concrete medium: clarity, transparency, trust.

The catalogue was more than an order form – it was a reference for the professional kitchen. You could open it, see the tool you were looking for, imagine it in use, assess the proportions, read off the material properties. That may sound obvious today. In 1976 it was an innovation. This approach – making things easier for customers rather than harder – runs as a thread through the entire company history: the printed catalogue became a digital range, the warehouse grew, logistics were modernised – but the core idea remained.

Growth, Relocation and the Second Generation

WAS Germany has expanded four times since founding – in 1980, 1990, 2001 and 2014. Each expansion was a response to growing demand. The move from Hamburg to Rosengarten in 2000 brought the decisive logistical advantage: a modern warehouse and logistics centre of 10,000 square metres, from which over 4,000 items are shipped worldwide. Rosengarten lies south of the Hanseatic city, directly at Hamburg's gateway to the world – a location offering short routes to the port, the airport and the major distribution routes of northern Europe.

In 2011 Tim Schulz, son of founder Werner A. Schulz, took over the management. What followed was not a reinvention of the company but a consistent further development: new warehouse management for faster availability, system integration for B2B customers, expanded ranges and new own-label brands. The father's service concept remained, complemented by the tools and possibilities of the present. Hamburg values, as the company itself says: honest, reliable, personal. At WAS Germany using first names is not a platitude but a lived company culture – internally and externally, with customers and suppliers alike.

What Professional Kitchen Tools Differ from Household Equipment

Anyone who has worked with professional kitchen equipment understands the difference immediately – and it is not always visible at first glance. A sauce ladle from the professional kitchen has the right handle length for the right pot, is balanced, sits securely in the hand and can still be guided precisely when you are tired and working under time pressure. A straining cloth from the professional kitchen does not tear, does not clog, can be fully cleaned after use and is still as dense after a hundred uses as it was on the first. A funnel from the professional kitchen does not drip when you release the lever – no marks, no loss, no interruption to the workflow. A cast-iron serving pan distributes heat evenly and retains it, so the dish arrives at the table exactly as it left the kitchen.

These are not large differences – but they are precisely the differences that determine the result. WAS Germany develops and selects its entire range against the standard of the daily professional kitchen: over 4,000 items, chosen for hotels, restaurants and catering businesses that apply the same standard every day and have no tolerance for error.

WAS Germany at miniSchoggi

Professional tools in the bakery and confectionery mean the same as in the restaurant kitchen: they must work every day, under pressure, without surprises. A funnel that drips when filling praline shells or bottles destroys work that took hours. A straining cloth that tears or clogs costs time and raw materials. A sauce ladle that tips or drips turns carefully portioned work into chance. These are not dramatic scenarios – they are the daily reality in every bakery that wants to work carefully and efficiently.

WAS Germany has been developing and supplying tools for exactly this standard since 1969 – for kitchens where the same actions are repeated a hundred times daily and every one of them must be right. What hotels and restaurants worldwide trust works just as reliably in the confectionery, the pâtisserie and the ambitious home kitchen. The difference is not the user but the standard. miniSchoggi carries selected WAS Germany products – funnels, sauce ladles, serving pans, straining cloths and further professional kitchen tools – because good craft deserves the right tools and because professional quality should not stop at the restaurant kitchen door. The range is continuously expanded.

What began in 1969 in a Hamburg warehouse as a service concept now stands in professional kitchens, hotels and restaurants around the world – every day, at every touch. WAS Germany.