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Nungesser GmbH since 1775Nungesser GmbH is Germany’s oldest trading house for seeds. History
The first Nungesser cleaning house, ca. 1880 The company then received its properly registered name L.C. Nungesser after his son, Ludwig Christoph Nungesser (1802-1866). It was the first industrial company in the Griesheim community. At the end of the 19th century, he build a so-called "Kleng facility", where the seeds could be removed from inside the pine cones. This was particularly profitable, because it facilitated the removal which until then had been done mainly in private homes or outdoors in the sun. After his death in 1866, his sons Heinrich (1883 - 1909) and Friedrich ran the seed business L. C. Nungesser. Together they established two more Kleng facilities, one each in the Odenwald and Pfalz regions of Germany. Import of the first North American grass seeds commenced in 1975; mainly Kentucky Bluegrass and Redtop. They also started the export of European grass seeds to North America, such as certain kinds of clover and alfalfa, as well as to some countries in South America, among them Argentina and Uruguay.
Take-over by the Eisele family Following the death of Friedrich Nungesser, the company was taken over by Kurt Eisele in 1930. Under his leadership, Nungesser merged with the Conrad Appel company in 1936, which was also founded in Griesheim. The company’s registered seat was moved to Darmstadt. Before and after WWII, a cultivating station was established that developed a species program for agricultural use. Later on, the product portfolio was expanded to include lawn seed and bird food. At this time, Nungesser was involved both in the trade of seeds and in processing, growing, and researching lawn seeds. Especially in the years between 1980 and 1990, the company was very successful in researching seeds, operating farms in Africa and Asia with about 250 employees in total. In 1986, Christoph Eisele sold L. C. Nungesser KG Saaten to the French Group Limagrain. About 200 administrative employees were laid off and the business focused on bakery seeds. Since the year 1997, when five shareholders bought it back, Nungesser is again an independent company. Among those five shareholders was Michael Gütlich, who later became managing director of the company. Restructuring Parallel to their traditional trading business, the Nungesser subsidiary GrowNex commenced the trade of commodities on the Internet in the year 2000. Like many other companies, GrowNex became a victim of the "new market", went into bankruptcy and Nungesser had to be completely restructured. In 2001, the Gütlich family bought 70% of the shares from the liquidator, while the Dutch company Internamtrade B.V. bought 30%. At first, the company - now located in Bensheim - handled the European business of two of their customers. Managing Director is Mrs. Gütlich. Since 2004, Nungesser focuses only on the trade of raw commodities via the Internet, and on building up the Mercurius database. The company does not trade in commodities themselves, but mainly establishes contacts between producers and buyers. In 2005, the first office outside of Germany was set up in China. In 2007, work commenced on the internet-based trading platform for raw commodities, Emporium, which is a supplement to the Mercurius database. In 2009, this was followed by introduction of the raw commodities information service, "The Auditor". In 2010, the Swiss trading house Karl Muggli AG, which deals in grains and seeds, bought the 30% share of Internamtrade B.V., and on 26 November the subsidiary T-enT GmbH was founded, which is held jointly with Mr. Engemann. This subsidiary is responsible for providing services in the area of electronic data processing, development, and marketing and sales of software products. Managing Director is Mr. Engemann. In 2011, the Agrifriend "The Agriculture Network" was made available, a business network for the world of raw commodities trade. As a logistics service provider, Karl Muggli also handles all transportation of goods for the Emporium. Services
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