On 1 July 1851, Emil Heinrich Worlée and Rudolph Ehrenreich Jalaß opened a trading business for colonial goods - then called a shop for ‘Droguerie- und Materialwaaren’ - at Grimm 25.

In 1874, the two owners separated and Emil Heinrich Worlée and his brother Ferdinand continued to run the business under the name E.H. Worlée & Co. They continued to import colonial goods, but above all tropical tree resins from South East Asia and Africa - copals and dammares - as raw materials for the production of paints and varnishes, which at that time were mainly based on natural raw materials. The steel industry, which developed rapidly as a result of industrialisation in the second half of the 19th century, produced new products such as ships, railways and machinery, which had to be preserved and protected against corrosion and decomposition - so the demand for protective coatings increased enormously. The new company headquarters were located at Catharinenstrasse 33, where the company remained until 1922.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the business, the former apprentice Konrad Windfuhr described very vividly what the company's comptoir, which was located on the ground floor of Catharinenstrasse 33 on the Nicolaifleet side, looked like in 1906/07:

‘The property was, like most old Hamburg merchants' houses, relatively narrow, but correspondingly deeper. It consisted of the front building with a passageway to the courtyard... and on the canal the warehouse with five floors and the winch floor... In the office, both the bosses and the employees and apprentices used old-fashioned standing desks of various kinds with high swivel stools, ten in total. Six desks stood in the centre, separated by a wooden wall a little over a man's height. The youngest apprentice's desk was right by the door. Anyone who entered the door was immediately in the centre of the office.... At the back, in an intermediate building to the warehouse, there were two rooms that were used for samples. In the brighter room, where there was a large table for making samples, there was also a wall-mounted telephone with two receivers. .... A call from out of town, for example from Frankfurt am Main, was always something exciting, as the call had to be about an important business matter....(p.5/6)

Emil Heinrich Worlée died in 1899 and his brother Ferdinand initially continued to run the company alone until 1906, when he handed over the management to his great-nephew Erich von Eben, long-time employee Adolph Langhoff and authorised signatory Wilhelm Köhler, who died just one year later. After Adolph Langhoff's retirement, Erich von Eben-Worlée managed the company alone from 1933.

Under the management of Erich von Eben-Worlée and Adolph Langhoff, the company moved to Deichstrasse 52 in 1922, where it remained until its destruction in the bombing raids of July 1943.

The difficult economic and political times of the global economic crisis and the National Socialist regime with its six-year war period were also a challenge for E.H. Worlée & Co. Business with imported lacquer raw materials was severely restricted by the state-controlled trade of the National Socialists; trading operations could only be maintained by acquiring licences from the Reich authorities. Erich von Eben-Worlée may have hoped to ease his business situation by joining the NSDAP in May 1933. In 1936, the company built a precious resin factory in Wandsbek for the production of fused copals, which was destroyed in 1943. In another factory in Palmnicken (East Prussia), Erich von Eben-Worlée tried until 1945 to develop a domestic substitute product for natural resins from overseas using the amber mined above ground there.

In July 1938, Erich von Eben-Worlée took over the company Albert Epstein, Mönkebergstr. 5, which exported machinery and hardware to Brit. India and Ceylon, from Mrs Frieda Epstein, the widow of the owner who died in 1928. Erich von Eben-Worlée used the company's business foundations for his own import business. Deprived of their livelihood and without access to the so-called ‘compensation’ paid by the Worlée company. ‘compensation’ paid by the Worlée company, which had to be paid into a state-controlled special account, Frieda Epstein was able to emigrate first to England in April 1939 and a year later to America to join her son, who had already emigrated in 1937. After the war, an agreement on compensation was reached with her son, who was an American soldier in the occupation.

The company building at Deichstraße 52 was completely burnt out during bombing raids in July 1943. Little is known about the business development during the National Socialist era and the war years due to the destruction of the company documents.

After the bombing, the business was relocated to the private house at Bellevue 7 on Hamburg's Outer Alster.

Purchase of the medical drug company Agero, Worlée operates as a drug trafficking company

After the war, the company continued to focus on trading in raw materials for paints and the refinement of natural resins. In 1948, Erich von Eben-Worlée bought the property at Borsigstr. 16, where he rebuilt the precious resin plant in 1950/51. Imported Congo copals and other natural resins were refined (esterified) there - the end products were: Copal delester, melted copal and Bernkopanol. As the production of synthetic resins had been on an unstoppable rise since the 1930s, this plant for refining natural resins was unable to withstand the ever-increasing competition and began producing synthetic resins on a small scale.

Ferdinand v. Rosenberg joined the company as an apprentice in 1951, became Managing Director of the Lauenburg plant in 1964 and a partner in the company from 1969 until his retirement from management in 1996. In 1997, he joined the Advisory Board, which he served on as Chairman until 2016 and, following his retirement, as Honorary Chairman of the Advisory Board.

Dr Albrecht von Eben-Worlée (born 1924), son of Erich von Eben-Worlée, who died in 1955, built up a completely new business division in 1954 from a mushroom department and a dried fruit, vegetable and spice processing division.

In 1959, the small copal and synthetic resin production was relocated to a leased hall on Billbrookdeich. The mushroom, vegetable and spice department, which had grown considerably in the meantime, took over the Borsigstraße site in the same year. The Billbrookdeich plant, severely damaged by a fire during copal smelting in 1963, was rebuilt in the mid-1960s as a production facility for alkyd resins and developed into a synthetic resin factory with very positive business results, initially under the name ‘Chemie-Handelsgesellschaft E.H. Worlée & Co mbH’ (1962), and from 1973 ‘Worlée-Chemie GmbH’ for short.

As the small Billbrookdeich production site was no longer sufficient, a synthetic resin factory was built in Lauenburg on the Elbe, close to the then zonal border with the GDR. The later ‘Werk West’ started operations in 1976.

The drug trading company was founded in 1962. The dried vegetable raw materials division expanded rapidly and needed more space, so the new food processing plant
new food processing plant moved into the premises of the former Edelharzwerk in Borsigstraße in 1964. This branch of the company - which is still based in Billbrook today - has developed into another globally successful focal point of the company, which is an important supplier for the food, pharmaceutical and animal feed industries with its own production and processing plants, laboratories and extensive raw material warehouses, guaranteeing an assured standard of quality.

With the founding of E.H. Worlée & Co. B.V. (Netherlands) in 1967, the first sales office outside Germany is opened under Managing Director B. L. Blijdenstein. The first ‘stone’ for the international service and sales organisation was thus laid.

Joachim Schittek becomes a partner in the drug trading company E.H. Worlée & Co. GmbH, having started as an apprentice at Worlée in 1958. He joined the management team in 1973 and still advises the company today.

Sales at the new plant in Lauenburg grew so quickly that a small factory for polymer resins was purchased in Lübeck in 1983. Water-dilutable polymers for care products, paints and printing inks are still produced there today.

In 1986, Varistor AG is founded as a subsidiary in Switzerland. Three years later, a further foreign agency is established in the UK.

Worlée was one of the first companies to succeed in developing water-soluble alkyd resins to replace the commonly used mineral solvents. In 1990-93, a second factory, the ‘Werk Ost’, was built on the Lauenburg site to expand production capacity, as well as several research and development laboratories and application technology departments.

Worlée-Chemie GmbH has developed into a sustainable manufacturer of environmentally friendly synthetic resins and additives for the coatings, paints and printing inks industry throughout the world, as well as a sales partner for raw material producers in numerous countries. The Chemical Trade division complements the product range with pigments, additives and binders. A technical centre is located at the Lauenburg plant - with laboratories for research and development work as well as for technical application tests. The products are marketed by numerous national and international subsidiaries and agencies.

Reinhold von Eben-Worlée, son of Dr Albrecht von Eben-Worlée, who joined the company in 1984, was responsible for the construction of this new plant in Lauenburg.

In 1990, the Chemical Trade, Natural Products and Cosmetics divisions move from Bellevue to the newly constructed production and administration building at Grusonstrasse 22 in Hamburg-Billbrook.

In the same year, the French subsidiary E. H. Worlée et Co. Sarl is founded. In 1994, the company's international sales network expands with Worlée Italia S.r.l. in Italy.

In 1995, a research and development department for tea and tea-like products is set up.

Due to the increasing demand for organically produced products, the company establishes its own organic department.

The third business division, Cosmetics, was founded in 1999 for the trade and production of cosmetic raw materials. The development of innovative and market-orientated raw materials for skin care, hair care, sun care and decoration is the main focus of its work. The special focus is on natural cosmetics. Worlée Cosmetics has been certified organic since 2009. All in-house products are developed and manufactured in the Hamburg and Lübeck factories.

Worlée NaturProdukte GmbH was founded in 2000 from the operating divisions of E.H. Worlée & Co. (GmbH & Co.) and the drug trading company.

In 2005, the raw materials department for pet food is established.

2007: Foundation of Worlée Chemie India Pvt. Ltd (India)
2011: Foundation of Worlée (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd. and Worlée International Inc. (Canada)
2013: Foundation of Worlée América Latina S. A. (South America)
2014: Foundation of Worlée International (USA) Inc.

 

The cosmetics application laboratory at the Hamburg site went into operation in 2011.

In 2014, all logistics activities will be bundled in Worlée Drive Dried Logistics GmbH.

In 2017, a new building will be constructed on the neighbouring site at Grusonstrasse 26 in Hamburg-Billbrook. A new administration building will also be opened in Lauenburg.

In 2022, the company acquired a neighbouring property in Lauenburg and built a new production and development building for cosmetics here. Production, development and application laboratories were then relocated from Hamburg to Lauenburg.

Worlée is opening a climate-friendly logistics centre at Porgesring 13 in 2024 to further develop the logistics division into a holistic logistics service provider for Worlée and third-party customers. The new location is intended to set new standards in the field of green logistics with a focus on the well-being and protection of the environment and employees.

The subsidiary Worlée Drive Dried Logistics GmbH will be renamed NOAHH GmbH Logistik vorausgedacht.