Café HAG is a worldwide brand of

decaffeinated Decaffeination is the removal of caffeine from coffee beans, cocoa, tea leaves, and other caffeine-containing materials. Decaffeinated products are commonly termed by the abbreviation decaf. To ensure product quality, manufacturers are required ...

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

currently owned by JDE Peet's.

History

Café HAG was founded in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...

in 1906 as ''Kaffee-Handels-Aktiengesellschaft'' (Coffee Trading Limited). The company's founder was

Ludwig Roselius Ludwig Roselius (2 June 1874 – 15 May 1943) was a German coffee merchant and founder of the company Kaffee HAG. He was born in Bremen and is credited with the development of commercial decaffeination of coffee. As a patron, he supported ar ...

, who codeveloped the first commercial decaffeination process. Alfred Runge and Eduard Scotland designed posters and packaging, and are credited with designs that defined the company. In the 1920s and 1930s the company was known for the publication of the Café HAG albums of heraldic emblems. The coffee brand

Sanka Sanka is a brand of instant decaffeinated coffee, sold around the world, and was one of the earliest decaffeinated varieties. Sanka is distributed in the United States by Kraft Heinz. History Decaffeinated coffee was developed in 1903 (see Dec ...

spun off from Café HAG in 1910 for the French market ("Sanka" is a contraction of ''sans caféine''), and American rights to the Sanka name were sold in 1913. The

Kellogg Company Kellanova, formerly known as the Kellogg Company and commonly known as Kellogg's, is an American multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, US. Kellanova produces and markets convenience foods and snack f ...

purchased Roselius's American branch (based in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

) in 1928, then sold it to

General Foods General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the United States by C. W. Post, Charles William (C. W.) Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The company changed its name to "General Foods" in 1929, a ...

in 1939. General Foods acquired the original German company in 1979. In 1990 Kraft Foods merged with General Foods, thus HAG and Sanka became brands of the American company. The spelling Café HAG was standardized in the 1990s. HAG has been owned by JDE Peet's since 2015. Café HAG TV adverts were popular in the 1980s; in particular the character Klaus (played by Roger Callister) became something of a cult figure among advertisement aficionados.

References

External links

hag.it
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cafe HAG JDE Peet's Products introduced in 1906 Coffee brands Coffee in Germany