The first SALMIX® liquorice stick
After the end of the war, the chemist Heinz Caspar founded the Salmix company as a chemical-pharmaceutical company in St. Pauli in Hamburg in 1949. With his wife Eva and only four employees, he produced the first liquorice sticks, salmiac pastilles and cachous (pastilles for fresh breath) for pharmacies and drugstores.
We only know this much about the strictly-guarded secret recipe: the SALMIX® mixture consists of special oils from France, salmiac and liquorice, and baked at 80° and then processed according to the classic traditional manufacturing process. And it's still made to this day following the original recipe.
Growing popularity of handmade salmiac pastilles
Everyone wanted to suck the little black salmiac lozenges. And the company grew bigger and bigger. In May 1990 the company moved to a more spacious new building in Sievershütten in Schleswig-Holstein.
Like father like son
Heinze’s son Reiner was also fascinated from the beginning by the small lozenges. However, he first studied to become a pharmaceutical-technical assistant, then completed a degree in dentistry and practiced as a dentist. From 1997, Dr Reiner Caspar took over sole responsibility for the company, which in the meantime had been managed by the entire family. The number of employees increased significantly, so that in the fiftieth year of our existence a further office building was required.
70 years of manufacturing SALMIX® liquorice and still managed by the owner
Today, 70 years after the company was founded, the small production company is still managed by its owner and produces its salmiac pastilles and other liquorice specialities in Sievershütten near Hamburg. The handmade liquorice products have gained a firm place among liquorice lovers all over the world.
And one thing is certain: the secret recipe for the SALMIX® salmiac pastilles has always remained the same.