Melitta Group

What they do

The Melitta Group makes coffee filter papers, filter holders, roasted coffee, consumer coffee machines and professional machines for offices and catering, along with household films, foils and bags under brands such as Swirl, Handy-bag and Bacofoil. The group is headquartered in Minden in eastern Westphalia and reported preliminary 2025 revenue of about EUR 2.53 billion.

Why it matters

The company began with a domestic frustration. Melitta Bentz, a Dresden housewife, wanted coffee without bitter grounds. She punched holes in the base of a brass cup and lined it with blotting paper from her son's school exercise book. On 20 June 1908 she registered the filter as a utility model with the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin, and in December that year she and her husband Hugo founded the company with a capital of 72 Reichspfennig. Filter coffee, and later the pour-over method beloved of speciality cafés, owes much to her idea.

Products to know

• Melitta filter papers and holders: the original product line.
• Bean-to-cup and filter coffee machines: for the home.
• Melitta Professional: coffee machines for offices and hospitality.
• Household brands: Swirl, Handy-bag and Bacofoil.

The German angle

Melitta is one of the few major German companies founded by a woman, and her story is now part of the German patent office's own history of women inventors. The business later moved from Dresden to Minden and has remained in the Bentz family for four generations. It shows how a single household invention, protected early and developed patiently, can underpin a diversified family group more than a century later.