Melitta

Melitta is a family-owned German group based in Minden: the imprint of the group website lists the holding company, Melitta Group Management GmbH & Co. KG, at Marienstraße 88 in Minden. The official timeline traces the business back to 1908, when Melitta Bentz invented the coffee filter; on 20 June that year the Imperial Patent Office granted it utility model protection, and on 15 December the business was registered. In 1929 the company moved from Dresden to Minden, and in 1936 it developed and patented the filter bags that are typical of the brand.

According to the same timeline, Melitta's first electric coffee machine, the MA 120, dates from 1965; a page marking sixty years of filter coffee machines recalls that this entry into electric coffee preparation promised eight cups of filter coffee in six minutes, and places Melitta among the first suppliers in Germany to take that step. Today the brand's German site, melitta.de, sells filter coffee machines, bean-to-cup machines, coffee grinders, filter cones and filter bags; it publishes a catalogue of original spare parts for the filter machines and spare parts and milk containers for the bean-to-cup range, and runs a repair service.

The group describes itself as international and family-owned: its «About us» page counts around 5,500 employees across the member companies and names Jero Bentz, the founder's great-grandson, and Katja Möller as its chief management. Besides coffee and tea preparation, the group makes products «for freshness and cleanliness»; the divisions it lists include Melitta Europe, with one division for coffee and one for coffee preparation, and Melitta Professional Coffee Solutions. According to the same timeline, Caffè Corsini and roastmarket joined the group in 2021.