About us

Even during my school and university years, starting in 1994, I was interested in the vegan lifestyle, especially vegan products and the vegan business. Alongside my studies, I consulted for vegan companies and restaurants and gave vegan seminars and cooking classes. I was also a contact person for the press; for example, we filmed with Spiegel TV, and I provided background information to newspapers and magazines.

Since 2003, we have operated a recipe platform for vegan recipes, which became known as "Rezeptefuchs.de" in 2008. It quickly gained several hundred thousand monthly visits and a large community. In addition to the vegan recipes, we also built a large vegan product database. Our core target group had long since expanded far beyond those who follow a strictly vegan lifestyle.

Besides the thank-you emails from many users, especially regarding the baking and building instructions for our gingerbread house, we repeatedly received inquiries about whether we knew of a good vegan cheese alternative. At the time, however, there were no such cheese alternatives on the market. We then contacted various companies and asked if they would consider bringing such a product to market. Without exception, all of them declined and refused to produce it.

Finally, we decided to launch our own vegan cheese alternative. There was already a long line of interested customers. Initially, we used a small company in Thessaloniki, Greece, with a production facility in Drama, as our contract manufacturer.

The beginning was a challenge, but one we mastered brilliantly. The Greek contract manufacturer initially had absolutely no idea what "vegan" even meant. Over the years, several training courses were held there, covering ingredients, products, the motivations behind a vegan lifestyle, and its impact on the planet. The focus was on my seminar concept, "Hidden Animal Ingredients in Food," which I applied to carrier substances, flavorings, and process steps in the production itself. At that time, for example, there were gingerbread products where the carrier substance for the cinnamon flavoring consisted of (undeclared) gelatin. Similarly, some juices are clarified using (undeclared) gelatin. Using these everyday examples, we gradually trained the production team and raised their awareness of veganism. Back then, almost all cheese flavorings were of animal origin, meaning they were derived from milk. Vegan labeling didn't exist yet, so it was a painstaking process to determine which flavorings were vegan and which weren't.

Since the field was new, there were no product developers familiar with it, nor were there any suppliers. Ultimately, we developed our own formulas, which were continuously optimized.

The contract manufacturer in Thessaloniki/Drama could only produce simple blocks. These were then subsequently grated and later sliced in Germany.

That's how the world's first vegan cheese slices came onto the market.

Wilmersburger was an immediate success. We had developed exactly the products our target group had been searching for. Wilmersburger was available in every supermarket, and we exported to over 20 countries.

We focused on producing delicious vegan products that are a true alternative to cheese. Taste and texture had to be perfect. Our target group is people who, for various reasons, don't want to or can't consume cheese. Accordingly, we received a lot of positive feedback. There was the mother who wrote that her child could eat a cheese sandwich at kindergarten just like all the other children, and that her family had even switched entirely to Wilmersburger because it's simply tastier. Or someone who, at a business lunch at a pizzeria, could simply order a pizza that looked and tasted "perfectly normal" without the conversation turning to the topic of "veganism" again.

Our approach was to create an alternative to cheese that everyone would enjoy. We produce exclusively vegan products because we are committed to a vegan lifestyle. Our products are suitable for everyone and can make cheese completely unnecessary.

We create products designed to completely replace cheese. Our vegan cheese alternatives aim to replicate the taste and properties of traditional cheese so that the average consumer doesn't miss a thing. Dairy and cheese companies depend on the cheese business. They didn't want to give up their mainstay, cheese, which is heavily subsidized in Germany and the EU. They simply don't want to lose the segment of consumers who have chosen a vegan lifestyle. Consequently, they have repeatedly tried to create products specifically for vegans, but not for those who still eat cheese. This approach rarely works.

Wilmersburger was developed so that the products would taste good to everyone.

We were very successful, and it was a turbulent few years. Imitators appeared on the market and disappeared again. Our contract manufacturers also acted erratically. We had exclusive contracts for our developed vegan products and recipes. However, the contract manufacturers then wanted to market our recipes under their own brands. In the meantime, we trained new contract manufacturers on our recipes. The biggest challenge was when one of our contract manufacturers informed us that he would no longer produce for us. Since we shipped our goods directly to customers from there, the contract manufacturer had access to all our customer data. His plan was to supply all these customers directly, as we were no longer able to deliver without him. We managed to restructure the entire supply chain within a few weeks. Since there wasn't enough time for printed top films, we simply affixed labels to the packages. Because these looked different, we marketed the whole thing as a "Special Edition for our birthday with a fundraising campaign." This was very well received by customers and overall it was a very successful campaign.

A second curious incident occurred when we received a visit one day from a major starch supplier. He stood at our door and said, "You are by far the market leader in vegan cheese alternatives, and we are one of the largest starch suppliers. I think we should get to know each other." We invited him in, even ordered pizza, until he eventually told us that he had never been treated so kindly at any company and that he had actually been sent by a large dairy corporation to investigate the exact starches we use, as the corporation had been trying to replicate our products for years without success. It was a truly bizarre situation!

We originally came from the software industry and weren't used to such practices. We always made the best of every situation and always found a good solution. For all future formulas, we divided the process. There was a contract manufacturer who produced a kind of premix, and then a manufacturing plant. This way, no one but us had the complete formula and supplier data. Consequently, no manufacturer received new formulas from us anymore. The principle proved successful. The only remaining competitors on the market are effectively our former contract manufacturers with our old formulas.

Since 2015, we've been collaborating with a contract manufacturer for one product category. We've known them personally for quite some time, but they didn't previously have the necessary machinery to produce for us. The collaboration worked very well, and we planned to have all our products manufactured there starting in 2021. Unfortunately, the owner then suffered a serious health setback, putting those plans on hold.

Later, our partner company decided to close the factory where we were still producing one of our product lines at short notice. Since the factory was perfectly suited for the production of vegan cheese alternatives, and we had already been producing one product category there for almost 10 years, we decided to take over the factory. Ultimately, the decisive factors were the perfectly coordinated team and the outstanding quality. Regarding the quality, it's worth mentioning that we were unable to offer such a long shelf life on the products from any other contract manufacturer as we could from this factory.

We then contacted banks and received the go-ahead. However, since it was the middle of the holiday season and we only had a few weeks, we purchased the production facility, including the land and machinery, with cash on hand, without financing.

We then decided to look for an investor and partner at a later date. That time has now come.

We have optimized production so that all our vegan cheese alternatives can now be produced in one facility without external contract manufacturers. We purchased additional machinery, implemented new software systems, introduced reliable data backup, and installed a fiber optic connection. Many processes have been optimized, and production has held the highest level of IFS certification since 2025 and is also certified organic. Production is highly efficient and can produce large quantities of high-quality vegan cheese alternatives at competitive market prices.

In recent years, we operated an external cold storage facility at a freight forwarding company. Between the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, this external warehouse, including its software and administration, was integrated into our production facilities. Everything is now located at a single site.

Production is now fully set up and running. In recent years, we've focused on bulk consumer and industrial products. Now we can really get going again. As the Wilmersburger brand, we receive emails almost daily from consumers who miss our products in supermarkets. Last year, we brought around 1,000 packages to a trade fair to sample and test the new recipes with consumers. The packages were practically snatched out of our hands and sold out within hours on the first day. We then spent the rest of the fair just sampling the products.

Therefore, we are looking for a partner who is keen to enter the future market of "vegan" and further develop it.

A large-scale vegan production facility with state-of-the-art machinery on a roughly 14,000 sq m site with ample room for expansion. This includes comprehensive expertise in producing vegan cheese alternatives for the mass market, including best-selling recipes and innovative, future-oriented recipes (e.g., protein-based) not yet available on the market. Production is certified to the highest standards, IFS certified, organic certified, and maintains hygiene standards that allow for extended shelf life. The company also owns the Wilmersburger brand, which enjoys a particularly strong reputation among consumers.

Another advantage is that, firstly, very large quantities can be produced, but production is also profitable even with smaller quantities.

We, as the founders of Wilmersburger, will of course continue to be fully available.