History

The history of the Cillit brand dates back to the founding of the company by Ernst und Cilly Vogelmann in the year 1903. His son Ernst Franz Vogelmann took over his parents’ company in the year 1925 under the new name of ‘Cillichemie Ernst Franz Vogelmann’. Over the next 30 years he built it into a successful, global water technology company, setting up Cillit offices in Germany (1948), Italy (1966), France (1967) and Spain (1972).

In 1982 – with a turnover of roughly 85m DM and 470 employees in Germany and abroad – Ernst Vogelmann sold the group of companies to Benckiser, and the Cillit brand went on to become a global consumer brand with its range of household cleaners, ‘Cillit Bang’.

Following a management buyout of the water technology division of the Reckitt-Benckiser Group in 1990, Cillit’s water technology products were absorbed into the newly-founded BWT Best Water Technology Group. The new group then set itself the task of establishing Cillit alongside BWT as a leading water brand and as expert in all areas of water treatment. In the past few years, the company has worked hard to create a dynamic global Cillit distribution and partnership network: