THE LEIBNIZ STORY

Hermann Bahlsen created our very first biscuit.Originally called LEIBNIZ Cakes – known today as our butter biscuits.

LEIBNIZ was named after Hannover's incredible polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716).

Naming foods after well-known personalities was common at the time.

At the World's Fair in Chicago, Bahlsen is awarded the gold medal for LEIBNIZ Cakes.

The jury’s official reason for us giving us the prize…

"LEIBNIZ Cakes is imitated in a similar form by the competition under a different name; the fine buttery taste, however, is unique to this product.”

At this point in time, the company has grown to 100 employees.

As early as 1898, Berlin residents could admire one of the first illuminated advertisements in Germany at Potsdamer Platz.

It was very big. It was very bright. And it was for our LEIBNIZ Cakes.

Also around this time, TET salesmen were helping shape the image of the era.

Travelling all over Germany, dressed in sharp, bespoke uniforms.

Our new dust-and-moisture-proof packaging is launched for the first time: known as our TET pack.

It is the first cardboard pack capable of keeping the biscuits inside, permanently fresh.

The TET symbol shows a rising sun and a snake – derived from an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph, meaning ‘everlasting’.

Our founder Hermann Bahlsen always strove to stay ahead of the game.

In 1905, Bahlsen began producing LEIBNIZ Cakes on the very first assembly line in European industry, – eight years before Henry Ford introduced them to the automotive industry.

More than twelve million TET packs left our factory in 1912.

Industrially produced sweet biscuits were popular in England in the 19th century.

That’s where Hermann Bahlsen first had the idea of creating something similar in Germany.

In England, they were known as ‘cakes’, so that's what Bahlsen first called his creation, too: ‘Cakes’.

However, the more popular they became in Germany, the less right their English name felt.

So in 1911, Bahlsen gave them a more naturally German-sounding name, of his own creation: ‘Cakes’ became ‘Keks’.

A few years later, the product and their new name had become so popular, that it was added to the Duden (The German dictionary). Today, ‘Keks’ is the German word for all kinds of sweet biscuits.

The First World War arrived, bringing the rationing of raw materials.

It wasn’t until 1919 that LEIBNIZ KEKS could again be baked according to its true recipe.

The economic crisis and galloping inflation of the time, threatened to close Hermann Bahlsen's biscuit factory, for good.

Due to continued inflation in 1923, one pack of LEIBNIZ KEKS cost 400 billion marks!

To go shopping for essentials, people needed wheelbarrows, or even trucks, full of money.

Since many workers were drafted into military service during the Nazi era, Bahlsen employed more than 800 forced laborers from various European countries, mostly women from Poland and Ukraine. The company's role during the Nazi era was comprehensively researched by an independent team of historians from 2019 to 2024 and published as a book.

A reduction in the amount of butter available meant that for a short while, the production of LEIBNIZ KEKS, stopped.

As an alternative, Bahlsen created a high-quality hard biscuit that was the same size as the original LEIBNIZ KEKS. This short-lived creation was named ‘Union’.

Finally, production of the original LEIBNIZ KEKS begins again.

Using the original, true recipe (with butter), and to the same high standard that had been established, and loved, before the war.

From 1956, LEIBNIZ KEKS began to be packaged in a brand new way - the thermoplastic pack.

This new technology perfectly protected the biscuits from moisture.

And for the first time, kept them crisp and dry – or "oven-fresh" as we liked to say – for much much longer.

LEIBNIZ KEKS is relaunched, now in distinctive yellow packaging.

Maybe because yellow stands out very well on a shelf.

Maybe because no other biscuits wore yellow.

Maybe because yellow emphasises that our signature biscuit is baked with butter.

We no longer know why yellow was chosen.

But we’re glad that it was.

The very same colour is still proudly on our packs, to this day.

Our biscuits met chocolate for the very first time. Our already popular LEIBNIZ KEKS were sunk into slabs of smooth chocolate – and many people’s new favourite treat was born.

LEIBNIZ Choco have been a much loved part of our range, ever since.

A poster from 1985, advertising LEIBNIZ as the ideal ‘travel biscuit’.

For the first time, LEIBNIZ KEKS are baked with natural wholegrains.

Expanding our range in new ways.

Our ZOO biscuits were first introduced by Bahlsen in 1966. Quickly becoming a favourite for kids.

But by 1990, LEIBNIZ had already become the Bahlsen brand that took care of treats for families, so we were handed the keys to the ZOO. Taking over the baking and selling of our little animal-shaped biscuits, that we still make in their millions, today.

LEIBNIZ Minis are created. Delicious little versions of our equally delicious bigger biscuits.

The world gets a perfect new thing to nibble on.

Biscuits aren’t often the best thing when watching what you eat.

Which is exactly why we created our lower sugar biscuits.

The recipe of the original LEIBNIZ butter biscuit, just with less sugar.

Beautiful chaos.

Perfect imperfection.

A glorious.

Wonderful.

Mess.

That’s being a family.

The original LEIBNIZ KEKS had been part of the big little moments in life, for every kind of family, for 125 years.

Being something that helps makes family life a little sweeter is why LEIBNIZ exists. So we celebrated this milestone moment with lots of pride.

Beautiful chaos.

Perfect imperfection.

A glorious.

Wonderful.

Mess.

That’s being a family.

The original LEIBNIZ KEKS had been part of the big little moments in life, for every kind of family, for 125 years.

Being something that helps makes family life a little sweeter is why LEIBNIZ exists. So we celebrated this milestone moment with lots of pride.

What could be better than a biscuit?

Two biscuits.

But what could be better than two biscuits?

Two biscuits with chocolate cream in the middle.

Launched in 2016 and instantly popular, today this range is also available in a cocoa biscuit recipe, with milk cream as well as chocolate filling.

We launch two of the most popular LEIBNIZ biscuits – LEIBNIZ MINIS and LEIBNIZ ZOO – in a brand new gluten- & lactose-free recipe.

We continue to find new ways of making new delicious biscuits. This time by introducing the latest addition to our KEKS range – LEIBNIZ Spelt KEKS – baked with 100% spelt flour, from farmers we trust.

We've redesigned our packaging for the first time in a long time.

Creating designs that deliberately focus on our most unmistakable features – our beautiful biscuits and our bright yellow.

It may seem strange, but this redesign is part our effort to focus more on our responsibility.

By designing packs that we know we won’t have to think about for a long time, we can think about the more important things instead.

Like making those packs, and our business, more responsible as a whole.