Packaging of the year 2021: KATHI TORTENMEHL
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The company "KATHI - Nährmittelfabrik Kurt Thiele" was founded in 1950, on 31.03.1951 the registration in the trade and brand register followed. The company's history began in a garage in Halle (Saale). The baker Kaethe Thiele, to whose initials the brand name "Ka-Thi" is dedicated, may be considered the inventor of the baking mix. She came from a family of bakers - her husband Kurt had founded a wholesale business for bakery supplies in 1936, the year of their marriage, and at first was primarily responsible for selling the products she had developed. Necessity was the mother of invention: The experience of everyday life in the GDR made the founder aware of the hardships of housewives in the economy of scarcity. The ingredients needed for a cake were therefore immediately portioned to the required quantity and were bundled as a baking mix and safely at hand. The certainty of success, which was a basic performance promise in the GDR, only later developed into the modern "convenience" concept.
The standard product "cake flour," which was introduced in 1953, proved to be a particular recipe for success. The high-quality baking flour was versatile and followed the basic idea of the "building block principle. It could be used to make a wide variety of products: from cake bases to Gugelhupf, from chocolate cakes to egg liqueur tarts. Even back then, a recipe booklet with 25 recipes provided inspiration for using the baking mix. Even today, recipe suggestions are printed on every Kathi baking mix.
Already in the 1950s, "KATHI" was extremely innovative. They had developed tear-open sachet soups to which only water had to be added (today it would be called "instant soup"). The range also included mixes for ready-made dumplings and other dishes.
In the course of the state's forced regulation measures and the transformation into the "VEB Backmehlwerk Halle", the assortment was first forcibly reduced to the product group of baking mixes in 1968 and the family was finally expropriated in 1972. However, the brand name "KATHI" remained protected. In 1991, thirty years ago, the company was reprivatized and transferred back to the son of the founders, Rainer Thiele. Today, the brand "KATHI" is one of the rare brands from the East, which is still owner-managed in family hands.
The cake flour as the first baking mix for the end consumer on the German market could be called the "mother of the Kathi brand" today. In 1953, the packaging already featured formative design elements that can still be found today. Over the years, the logo "Koche und Backe mit Kathi" (Cook and bake with Kathi) has become a red brand tab in the upper center of the package. In GDR times, the logo was greatly reduced in size, but today it is once again in the center of the package. The product name first moved from the lower third of the pack to the upper part of the pack, then from 1998 to the upper tab and finally out of the tab again. The pack illustration is still dominated by the finished end product of the baking mix - then as now, the various possible uses of the cake flour as a cake base or sand cake are shown on the front of the pack. The corporate color red has played a leading role throughout the years. To this day, the brand identity of this traditional brand has evolved under very careful management, always maintaining its roots in an appreciative manner.
The jury is convinced by the quality and the courage to continue the historical brand design of "KATHI Tortenmehl". What is impressive is the consistent validity of the design language, which continues to be used without compromise. In appreciation of its role as a "classic" of international packaging design and at the same time in recognition of the proven courage of self-similarity, "KATHI Tortenmehl" will be awarded the prize "Packaging of the Year" 2021 for the 70th year of the company's existence.
