The REKORD brand

While the briquette factories in the Rhine coal field agreed already in 1904 to use the joint briquette brand "Union", a confusing variety of names existed in Lusatia for a long time. It was a fashion to use the names of the daughters of the factory owners, so there were Ilse briquettes and Victoria briquettes, but the names also reflected political attitudes (e.g. "Fürst Bismarck" briquettes) or had a symbolic character (e.g. "Kraft" briquettes [power briquettes]).

When the German Democratic Republic was founded and the factories were nationalised, the multitude of names vanished. The briquettes were named solely after the factory that produced them. Shortly after that, these names were replaced by abbreviations which only experts could decipher. However, these no-brand products were difficult to sell, especially abroad. Therefore, an ideas competition was launched in the early seventies which was won by the briquette manufacturer Hans-Jochen Hampel who had suggested the name "Rekord". Hampel received a premium of 500 Marks and the Eastern German briquettes finally their unifying brand name.

In 1961, the combined word and figurative mark REKORD was officially registered as a trademark and since then the REKORD brand has been standing for small energy packs refined to the highest quality standards. This also marked the birth of the little red REKORD devil which as a whimsically smiling mascot has been accompanying the REKORD brand to this day.

Like so many things, the REKORD was up for negotiation at the time of the German reunification but because various studies showed that the brand had already been very well established in the east, the name was not changed. Even today, more than 50 years after registration of the trade mark, most people still feel that lignite briquettes, the brand name REKORD and the red devil belong together. We at REKORD do everything to ensure this will not change and continue to write the long success story of the REKORD briquette.