Bort

Bort is a German manufacturer of medical aids, best known for orthopaedic bandages and orthoses and for medical compression stockings. The company, which trades as BORT GmbH, is based in Weinstadt near Stuttgart and traces its start to 1981, when Irmgard and Rudi Bort set up the business with three part-time employees in rented premises in Schorndorf [3]. It remains an owner-managed family business [1].

Over four decades the company has grown from a small operation into a supplier with more than 11,000 product variants, a large share of them made at two production sites in Germany [3]. Its products are sold mainly through specialist medical-supply retailers, chiefly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and according to the company in more than 30 countries in total.

The story Bort tells about itself begins in 1981 with a husband-and-wife team, Irmgard and Rudi Bort, three part-time staff and a rented space in Schorndorf, a town east of Stuttgart. The company's present headquarters in Weinstadt-Benzach came later.

Accounts of the founding differ slightly. The company dates its beginning to 1981, and a trade-fair exhibitor profile for OTWorld 2026 gives the same year [11]. A company-register profile, however, lists the founding date of the limited company Bort GmbH as 22 September 1980 [13], which likely reflects when the legal entity was entered rather than when trading began. The same OTWorld profile places the founding in Weinstadt, while the company's own history names Schorndorf as the starting point and Weinstadt as the later headquarters.

The family has stayed at the helm. An earlier company portrait named Rudi Bort and Wolfgang Bort, together with former authorised signatory Ewald Dambacher, as the management [12]. A current register profile lists Wolfgang Jürgen Bort as managing director.

The earlier portrait offers a snapshot of a much smaller Bort. At that time around 60 employees worked at the parent plant in Weinstadt, 20 of them in field sales, while 45 more at other German sites made roughly 90 percent of a range of about 200 medical products. The text stressed that the company was investing in products "Made in Germany", in new technology and in its online presence, during what it called economically difficult times.

That portrait also explains an important shift in direction. It describes how three German public health reforms since the company's founding had reduced the number of preventive, care and rehabilitation aids that health insurers fully reimbursed, with patients paying a growing share themselves. In response, Bort began developing and marketing products that do not need a prescription, such as sports bandages and special products for people with diabetes [12].

Today the scale is considerably larger. According to the company, about 160 people work at the Weinstadt headquarters, 35 of them in field sales, and a further 350 staff at two German production sites make a large share of the more than 11,000 product variants that Bort develops and sells. Other figures in circulation vary with date and with what is counted: the OTWorld profile speaks of more than 500 employees, while the register profile gives 138 employees in 2023 for the Bort GmbH legal entity alone [13].

In 2016 the company's hybrid headquarters building received the Industriebaupreis, a German prize for industrial architecture [6]. On 31 August 2026 Bort launched a new online shop for its trade customers [7].

Bort is independent and family-owned. The company describes itself as an owner-managed family business, and no parent company or outside owner is documented. No acquisitions by or of the company are known.

The name BORT Medical also appears on the company's website and in product listings, and the headquarters building is referred to as that of BORT Medical GmbH. The legal entity named on the website and in the commercial register in Stuttgart is BORT GmbH.

Bort presents itself as a quality-focused partner to the medical profession rather than as a consumer brand. On its website the company says it relies consistently on quality as an owner-managed family business, and that each product draws on long experience and the know-how of physicians, therapists and orthopaedic technicians. Products are developed, it says, in exchange with doctors, therapists and specialist retailers, with the needs of patients and athletes in mind.

The company frames its relationship with specialist retailers as a partnership of more than 40 years, built on three values it names as selection, quality and experience. Its tagline is "BORT. Das Plus an Ihrer Seite.", rendered in English at trade fairs as "BORT. Benefit at your side."

Bort also makes broad claims about its range. It describes its full assortment across orthopaedics, phlebology (the treatment of vein disorders) and oedema therapy as having demonstrable therapeutic benefit and good value for money [4]. In the OTWorld exhibitor profile the company is described as one of Germany's leading manufacturers of medical aids in orthopaedics, phlebology and lymphoedema and oedema therapy [11]. The same text says Bort aims to make the provision of medical aids simple by reducing complexity and making products easier to use.

According to the company, its medical products can as a rule be prescribed by doctors and reimbursed by health insurers [3]. That places much of the range within the medical-supply system, where a doctor's prescription is filled by a specialist retailer.

Bort's core business is bandages and orthoses, which the company groups under orthopaedics. An orthosis is an external brace or support that stabilises, relieves or corrects a joint or part of the body. The company says its full range of bandages and orthoses offers suitable solutions for a broad spectrum of indications. Product lines on the company's website are grouped as Sport, Select, Med, Generation and Kids, alongside over-the-counter products and accessories.

Product listings show the breadth of the orthopaedic range. They include the Stabilo knee sleeve, the OmoBasic and SellaTex shoulder splints, the ManuZip wrist support, the OmoARS and OmoFX arm slings, and paediatric products such as the StabiloFix clavicle orthosis and a children's cervical collar.

A newer addition is BORT DorsoXpress, a back-orthosis series that the company describes as six modular orthoses offering numerous combinations for a wide range of indications.

The second pillar is knitting technology. Bort says its work in phlebology and in lymphology and oedema therapy rests on the same expertise in knitting. Compression stockings are tight-fitting medical garments used in the treatment of vein and lymph conditions. The company sells two families of them:

- BORT AktiVen, circular-knit medical compression stockings for vein disorders, also available made to measure. - BORT AktiVen Intense, flat-knit compression garments for oedema therapy, which the company says include highly individual solutions.

Alongside the prescription range, Bort sells products that are freely available without a prescription. PediSoft is a line of silicone and gel foot-protection products which, according to the company, protect the areas of the foot most exposed to pressure and friction: the ball, the sole, and the toes and the spaces between them. BORT ClimaCare is a warming range with a high proportion of angora wool, which the company says makes it light, soft and close-fitting on the skin.

On quality, Bort states that its quality management system complies with, and is certified to, EN ISO 13485, the international standard for quality management in medical-device manufacturing [5]. No cosmetic or consumer-product certifications are documented.

The company's website also carries patient and professional information. It hosts explanations of common conditions such as arthrosis, back pain, venous disorders, lymphoedema and lipoedema, along with exercise videos for the shoulder, ankle, back and knee and fitting videos for its products.

Bort's stated environmental commitments are modest and specific. The company says it chooses partners and service providers that produce to certified standards and as ecologically and economically as possible. It also says its prescription guide, product programmes and price lists are printed climate-neutrally under a scheme of the German printing and media industries association.

The award-winning hybrid headquarters building is the company's most visible investment in its own premises.

The Industriebaupreis 2016, awarded for the company's hybrid headquarters building in Weinstadt, is the only documented award. It recognises the architecture of the building rather than any product. No press coverage in general or consumer media is documented.

Bort is active. In the weeks before mid-October 2026, its news page carried a series of posts, including the launch of the new trade shop on 31 August 2026 and a report on a seminar held in Berlin on 7 October about fitting BORT AktiVen Intense flat-knit compression stockings. The company exhibited at OTWorld 2026, the orthopaedic technology trade fair in Leipzig, in May 2026. As of October 2026 it listed the German Congress of Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery (DKOU) in Berlin, 20 to 23 October 2026, as an upcoming event.

The company sells mainly through specialist medical-supply retailers and, by its own account, distributes its products particularly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and in more than 30 countries worldwide. A register profile classes Bort GmbH as a large enterprise in the manufacture of medical and dental instruments and supplies.