Like a skilled glassblower, Weck’s new management is carefully shaping the iconic German jar maker into a stronger, more modern and increasingly international company for the decades ahead. While its glass jars remain reassuringly familiar, the business behind them is being fundamentally strengthened.
Few household objects evoke nostalgia quite like a jam jar: filled with homemade strawberry jam, lined up with pickled preserves in the pantry and dotted in homes across the world. For more than a century, Weck’s storied strawberry logo has stood for quality, tradition and durability.
Founded in the early twentieth century in Öflingen/Germany, Weck pioneered the home-canning method for glass jars and helped make preserving a household ritual not only in Germany, but around the world. Generations of consumers have grown up with the brand, and that familiarity remains one of its greatest strengths.
But in recent years, the strength of the brand masked a business that, for a variety of reasons, had become too costly to run and was in severe decline. Spiking energy costs during the pandemic sealed its fate, sending the company into insolvency.
Since AURELIUS rescued it in 2023, Weck has undergone a comprehensive transformation designed to make the company fit for the future while preserving everything consumers value about the brand and its products.
Breathing new life into Weck
Operations were stabilised and Weck has returned to growth, with sales up 16% year-on-year in 2025 as the AURELIUS-enabled transformation has seen the facilities running back at full capacity since last summer, while other glass manufacturers had to close their factories. “We have re-energised this business,” Weck’s CEO Jan Becker says proudly.
At the point of acquisition, Weck was facing significant strategic and operational challenges: it had been lossmaking for many years. It has been hard work to turn the business around, but what has changed is largely behind the scenes.
The main focus has been on rebuilding the company’s foundations: streamlining operations; strengthening leadership; building sales, marketing and product management teams from scratch; and creating a more agile platform for growth.
In early 2025, Weck was ready for the relaunch of its brand: colourful, with a modern look and feel, including a plumper, brighter strawberry, the new look is designed to appeal to today’s food lovers.
New markets, new channels, new momentum
That work is now beginning to pay off with tangible commercial momentum. Investments in digital channels are opening up new routes to market. In late 2025, Weck launched a completely overhauled Shopify-based online shop. At the same time, the brand has expanded its presence on Amazon in Germany and key European markets, including France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. The acquisition and successful integration of WAL GmbH, the producer of Weck’s famous canning machines as well as a wholesaler of glasses and accessories, has helped create a more consolidated and efficient sales structure.
New cook books to drive demand
The strength of the brand itself continues to shine through the reinvigorated business. Its original canning book, the first of its kind, had been untouched for over two decades. Effectively a bible for canning, it contained a wealth of expertise and had been much loved. Since content and style were updated in 2025, annual sales have leapt to over 40k books. On the back of this success, Weck launched a new fermentation book, with strong sales from day one.
Book sales are now more than a revenue stream: they serve as a driver of future demand for Weck’s core products as readers take up preserving and fermenting.
At the same time, Weck is firmly in growth mode. New packaging and product concepts tailored for Retail and the HoReCa segment have been launched, with strong early feedback.
Underpinning all this is a firm focus on sales – crucial to any successful business. “It hasn’t been easy; we needed to completely recalibrate. We have hired an impressive team, meaning we now have customer centricity as a core focus to boost sales in the months and years ahead,” Jan explains. This has included a product management department, marketing and e-commerce functions.
An additional 20 people were hired in customer-focused functions in the last two years alone, bringing in relevant experience and high levels of professionalism to turbo-charge the brand’s growth.
Taking back control of the brand
Roll-out to German and wider European retailers as well as establishing subsidiaries in selected geographies is underway, while direct relationships with major players such as Metro and Handelshof mark an important step in scaling the business’ direct-to-market presence. Direct sales through online channels including Shopify and Amazon are also growing strongly, with the latter relatively new and expanding into new European markets. The former is a longer-standing presence, but sales growth is now reflecting the new momentum. “We’ve roughly doubled online revenues year-on-year and intend to do even more this year,” Jan says, pointing to a strong monthly run rate.
AURELIUS is supporting Weck to refine its strategic value proposition, looking in particular at the premium product offered to retailers and ensuring its value is reflected. The sales team continues to be built out, with experienced key account managers focused on customer centricity, ensuring both retailers and end users appreciate the premium product that the Weck brand embodies.
Looking ahead, targeted investments in operational improvement should yield further benefits. ERP implementation from Q2 2026 and optimisation of spare production capacity are expected to support both efficiency and further margin expansion, while evolution of the industrial packaging and branded jar portfolio will boost EBITDA in 2026.
WECK’s journey over the past two years shows how the right operational and strategic support can breathe new life and commercial success into the most traditional and faded of brands, reshaping them for modern growth while preserving everything that made them iconic in the first place.