History of Markant Group
The history of our corporate group began more than 70 years ago with the founding of the Allsicht Organisation by Adolf Spinner and a few like-minded people. Their mission was to promote collaboration between wholesalers and retailers as well as with industrial partners.
The guiding principle of cooperation has characterized Markant from the beginning.
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1950
DE
Wholesaler Adolf Spinner of Offenburg, Germany founds Allsicht Organisation (ASO) with a few like-minded people.
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1953
DE
Founding of wholesale chain A&O, a voluntary cooperative of 20 food wholesalers.
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1960
DE
Founding of the international Zentralkontor.
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1963/64
CH
A&O Zentralkontor Launches Central Settlement and offers supplementary services.
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1973
DE
A&O superseded by Offenburg-based SELEX Handels GmbH, which focuses on the food business.At the same time, Tania Handels GmbH in Hamburg grows with a non-food orientation.
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1983
DE
Merger of SELEX and Tania to form S+T Bundeszentrale Selex + Tania Handels AG.
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1987
CH
Founding of Markant Handels- und Industriewaren-Vermittlungs AG in Pfäffikon, Switzerland.
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1988
CH
Markant Handels- und Industriewaren-Vermittlungs AG begins operations in Pfäffikon.
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1989
CH
Founding of the European cooperation European Marketing Distribution (EMD) by Markant Handels- und Industriewaren-Vermittlungs AG and seven European partners.
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1991
DE
Merging of the previously legally independent service companies Selex and Tania Group to create Markant Handels und Service GmbH.
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1994
CH-DE-ES
Markant Finanz AG in Basel and Iberiana Frucht in Offenburg/Valencia begin operations.
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1999
CZ
Founding of national subsidiary Markant Česko s.r.o. in Prague.
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2001
DE
Consolidation of the Wiesbaden and Worms locations in Worms.
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2002
DE
Construction of the non-food sample presentation centre in Worms.
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2004
CZ
Founding of national subsidiary Markant Slovensko s.r.o. The national subsidiary is supported out of Prague.
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2008
CH
Establishment of a strategic partnership with Syntrade AG in Pfäffikon; today Markant Syntrade Schweiz AG is a subsidiary of Markant Handels- und Industriewaren-Vermittlungs AG.
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2009
AT-CH-DK
During the course of its internationalization, Markant Handels- und Industriewaren-Vermittlungs AG concludes strategic cooperations with ZEV Markant (which reincorporates as Markant Österreich GmbH) in Austria and with Syntrade AG in Switzerland.Start of Central Settlement in Denmark.
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2011
DE
Markant celebrates 100th Markant Food Trade Forum and 30 years of brand enhancement.
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2012
CH
International coordination headquarters of Markant Handels- und Industriewaren-Vermittlungs AG in Basel begins operations.
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2013
PL-CH
Start of operations in Poland and Hungary.Markant Handels- und Industriewaren-Vermittlungs AG celebrates its 25th company anniversary and 60 years of international cooperation.
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2014
DE
The new European computing centre of Markant Group in Offenburg begins operations.Food and non-food areas in Germany consolidated at the Offenburg location.
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2016
PL
Founding of the Markant Handels und Service Sp. z. o.o. service company in Warsaw.
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2017
DE-AT
Expansion of the Offenburg location to an international service center of Markant Group.Renaming of Markant Handels und Service GmbH in Markant Services International GmbH.
Markant Österreich GmbH supports the Croatian and Slovenian target markets.
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2018
DE – CZ
Completion of the new MARKANT Group building in Offenburg.MARKANT Česko moves to new premises in Prague.
Integration of AGU into the MARKANT group as a 100 percent subsidiary.
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2019
DE – CH
Foundation of the start-up platform voilà! as well as the start-up arena as part of the MARKANT trade forum.
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2020
BEL – DE
Establishment of a new national company: Markant BELUX based in Brussels.margin-1
2021
DE
Completion of the existing Markant building at the Offenburg location.Integration of the former «AGU Beratungsgesellschaft für Umwelt- und Qualitätsmanagement mbH» into Handelsmarken GmbH.
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2022
DE
Receiving the reta award 2022 for the service «Digitale Vorgangsakte» and the ECR Award for the platform developed in cooperation with Beiersdorf, dm-drogerie markt and Rossmann.Relaunch of the Markant start-up platform «voilà! – the start-up arena».
Markant's first summer party at the Offenburg location.
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2023
IT – DE
Founding of an additional location of Iberiana Frucht S.r.l. in Conversano, Italy.Markant acquires a majority stake in Bayard GmbH in Cologne, which specialises in product content lifecycle management software solutions for suppliers and retailers.
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2024
DE
Winner of the reta award 2024 in the «Best Connected Retail Solution» category for the Markant platform.Founding of Retail.ai GmbH, based in Frankfurt am Main, to support retail and FMCG companies in introducing generative AI.
Winner of the ECR Award in the «Innovation Excellence 2024» category for the ProductWizard service.
Founding of Markant Services International Portugal Lda, based in Porto.
For better readability, only the masculine form is used on the website. This form is explicitly understood to be gender-neutral.