Bullrich

Bullrich is a German brand of over-the-counter health products whose history goes back to a Berlin pharmacist, August Wilhelm Bullrich, and his use of sodium bicarbonate as a remedy for heartburn. Its oldest product, Original Bullrich Salz, is dated by the company to 1827 [7], and the brand describes it as probably the oldest branded product in Germany [2]. Over the following two centuries the name became so closely tied to its active ingredient that German consumers came to call baking soda itself simply "Bullrich".

Today the range covers heartburn and digestive remedies, acid-base supplements and a line of healing-earth products, including powders, a paste and sheet masks for blemished and oily skin. The brand is active, run from Egelsbach in the German state of Hesse, and is presented on its website as part of the Dr. Beckmann Group GmbH. Its own materials name Germany and Austria as its target region.

August Wilhelm Bullrich was born in Potsdam on 2 June 1802, according to German Wikipedia, and was the son of a merchant, Carl Wilhelm Bullrich. The family name had earlier been spelled Bullricz. He trained as a pharmacist and began his career in Berlin.

The founding story, as the company tells it, starts with his own discomfort. Bullrich suffered from severe heartburn and, through a series of experiments on himself, found that sodium bicarbonate eased it. Sodium bicarbonate is the mild alkaline salt known in German as Natron and in English as baking soda; it neutralises stomach acid. Bullrich then promoted his product across the German-speaking region at trade fairs and exhibitions and through travelling salesmen, presenting it as a "universal remedy".

The two main accounts of these early years agree on the discovery but differ on when the business began. The company dates Original Bullrich Salz to 1827 and markets it as having existed "since 1827" [7]. German Wikipedia also places the discovery in 1827, but records that commercial sale began only in 1834/35, when the product, then called "Bullrichs Universal-Reinigungs-Salz" (Bullrich's universal cleansing salt), was packed in small paper sachets and sold [8]. The same article quotes a historic label describing Bullrich as the "inventor of the original Bullrich salt of 1835". This article follows the company's 1827 date as the brand's starting point while noting that the first documented sales come several years later. The brand's own history page is less specific still, saying only that the story begins in Berlin in the middle of the 19th century.

The early packaging, as described by Wikipedia, carried a Berlin address on Schönhauser Allee and an oval portrait of Bullrich as a "first-class pharmacist", alongside a note that the salt was intended "against stomach complaints and the consequences of poor digestion". Bullrich held the official title of purveyor to the court of the King of Prussia [8]. He also wrote a popular health guide, "Der Selbstarzt" ("The Self-Physician"), which explained what it called a new natural healing method for general use; its third edition appeared in 1859.

According to the same source, the business grew quickly and became closely associated with sodium bicarbonate, and the product was marketed successfully both in Germany and abroad. Bullrich married Henriette Wilhelmine Crudelius, known as Minna, in January 1836; the marriage was childless. He died in Berlin on 3 July 1859.

### Family rivalry

Bullrich's death opened a long period of family conflict over the business. German Wikipedia states that a niece first continued the company. The brand's own account describes how his successors faced competition from within their own family, leading to years of bitter rivalry between two competing firms.

The sources give different end points for this dispute. The company says it ended in 1924, when the two firms merged and were entered in the commercial register under the name "A.W. & C.W. Bullrich" [2]. German Wikipedia instead says the family disputes over the brand ended in 1920 with a takeover by the Spielhagen family [8]. The two dates are not necessarily contradictory, since an ownership change and a later register entry could both have taken place, but neither source reconciles them.

### Growth between the wars

The period after the merger is described by the company as the brand's heyday, with rising awareness and sales. It was during these years, the brand says, that "Bullrich" turned into a generic word, and baking soda was known to many consumers only by that name. German Wikipedia makes the same point, attributing the shift to mass advertising that made the name a synonym for sodium bicarbonate as a heartburn remedy for decades.

That advertising took some unusual forms. In the mid-1920s the so-called "Bullrich giants", larger-than-life papier-mâché figures carrying advertising slogans, paraded through the streets of Berlin, accompanied by walking folding cartons. In 1928, according to the company, Bullrich products left its factory on Kurfürstenstraße in Berlin by delivery cart.

In the 1930s the brand turned to public transport. Advertising on and inside trams across Germany drew wide attention, according to the company, with examples including interior advertising in Stuttgart trams in 1932 and tram advertising in Hamburg in 1938. Later, for the 60th anniversary of Hamburg's tram network, an old horse-drawn tram car numbered 261, dating from 1892, was decorated with Bullrich advertising.

### Post-war decline

The Second World War ended this period of growth. The company says its Berlin factory was destroyed and that the sources of raw materials in the east were no longer reachable. A difficult new start followed, including a branch operation in the Rhineland. In the brand's own words, tradition was not in demand at the time, and Original Bullrich Salz drifted increasingly to the margins of the market.

### Revival from 1982

The turning point, according to the company, came when delta pronatura, formerly known as Delta Chemie, took over the brand with effect from 1 January 1982 [2]. Targeted marketing and active sales work brought the brand back into wide use, the company says. Its history page shows the company's owners in 1984 as Heiner Beckmann, Dr. Klaus Beckmann and Dr. Theo Krauß, and documents a run of advertising from the period, including a 1987 advertisement, a 1988 print campaign and print advertising through the 1980s and 1990s.

From there the brand broadened beyond its single antacid. In 1994 it took up the subject of the body's acid-base balance with a sub-range called Bullrich's Vital, known today as Bullrich Säure-Basen-Balance. In 2006 Bullrich Heilerde, a healing-earth range, joined the line-up under the Bullrich umbrella brand. The most recent addition with a beauty focus is a set of healing-earth sheet masks, which the company presents as the first of their kind in Germany; no launch year is given.

By the company's own dating from 1827, the year 2027 marks two hundred years of Original Bullrich Salz.

Bullrich has passed through several hands. After the founder's death the company stayed with the extended family, and by German Wikipedia's account the Spielhagen family took it over in 1920. The brand's own history instead frames the 1920s around the 1924 merger of the two rival family firms. Delta pronatura acquired the brand effective 1 January 1982, and German Wikipedia also records that the brand later passed to delta pronatura, without giving a date.

The name of the current owner differs between older and newer sources. A 2015 brand profile in the German retail trade magazine LebensmittelPraxis lists the company behind Bullrich as delta pronatura Dr. Krauss & Dr. Beckmann KG, based at Kurt-Schumacher-Ring 15–17 in Egelsbach [9]. The brand's website, as of 2026, names Dr. Beckmann Group GmbH as the operator and publisher of the Bullrich brand world and shows the same Egelsbach address in its legal notice [3]. The website also notes that the Dr. Beckmann Group as a whole runs other brands, including Dr. Beckmann. The LebensmittelPraxis website carries a January 2025 item headlined "Delta Pronatura wird zur Dr. Beckmann Group" ("Delta Pronatura becomes the Dr. Beckmann Group") [10], which suggests the two names refer to the same business, though the details of that change are not described.

The registered seat is in Egelsbach, and the legal notice also lists a second address in Frankfurt am Main. The brand's historic home was Berlin.

Bullrich describes itself as a German traditional brand for over-the-counter health products. Its website groups the range under heartburn, gut health, acid-base balance, healing earth and cosmetics, and frames the whole offer with the line "Wohlbefinden und Balance im Alltag", meaning well-being and balance in everyday life.

The company is open about the tension between its age and its ambitions. It says that although Bullrich Salz is probably Germany's oldest branded product, a strong marketing team keeps it up to date, which it sees reflected in the modern design of its products and its most recent advertising. Its slogan for the antacid plays on the German word "Brand", which means fire: "Denn es gibt immer einen Brand zu löschen" ("Because there is always a fire to put out"), a nod to "Sodbrennen", the German word for heartburn.

Much of the brand's language draws on balance and the gut. Product copy speaks of restoring balance in the stomach and of helping skin that has "fallen out of balance". German Wikipedia describes Bullrich Salz as one of the most tradition-rich medicine brands in Germany; the company's own history pages likewise put its long tradition at the front.

### Original Bullrich Salz

The brand's founding product remains at the centre of the range. Original Bullrich Salz is sold as tablets with sodium bicarbonate as the active ingredient and is classed as a traditionally used medicine for heartburn and acid-related stomach complaints. That wording reflects a regulatory category based on long-standing use, not a clinical study claim. According to the company, the sodium bicarbonate neutralises excess stomach acid and acts quickly against heartburn. Alongside it, the brand sells Bullrich Magen & Darm 2in1 Akut, which it markets for both heartburn and bloating as a single product for use on the go.

### Säure-Basen-Balance

The acid-base range descends from the 1994 Bullrich's Vital line. The company says the products contain zinc, which contributes to a normal acid-base metabolism, and its homepage highlights magnesium and zinc. The brand argues that modern habits, such as physical strain, stress and a one-sided, protein-heavy diet, can burden the body's acid-base balance. A 2015 LebensmittelPraxis article describes two formats from the range: alkaline micro-pearls with an orange taste that can be taken without water, and a day-and-night combination in which a yellow morning tablet contains vitamin B2 for energy metabolism and a purple evening tablet contains vitamin D for the immune system.

### Bullrich Heilerde

Bullrich Heilerde is the brand's healing-earth range. Healing earth is a fine mineral clay; Bullrich's is pure loess, a mix of minerals from natural deposits, which the company says is extracted from ice-age loess layers, gently processed and ground ultra-fine. The brand explains that the finer the earth is ground, the larger its surface and the better it absorbs other substances. A 2015 LebensmittelPraxis profile repeats this description and calls the product natural and well tolerated.

The internal products, Bullrich Heilerde Kapseln (capsules) and Bullrich Heilerde Pulver ultra fein (powder), are sold as medical devices. The company markets them for a range of diet-related stomach and gut complaints, such as bloating and a feeling of fullness, and for binding fats, acids and cholesterol from food. The powder can also be used externally, and the brand lists skin problems such as acne and oily skin among those uses, along with muscle and joint complaints and minor skin inflammations.

For the face, the range includes Bullrich Heilerde Paste and a skin-fine powder, Heilerde Pulver hautfein, both aimed at blemished and oily skin. The paste comes ready-mixed, which the company says saves the time and effort of stirring the powder with water. Its listed ingredients are short: loess, water, bentonite (another mineral clay) and the preservative phenoxyethanol. The company says the paste is free of fragrance and the skin-fine powder free of additives and fragrance. It supports skin claims such as fewer spots and blackheads and a matte finish with a footnote citing clinical-dermatological application studies carried out by an independent test institute, and it states that the products were rated "very good" by the testing service dermatest [5].

### Healing-earth sheet masks

The sheet masks are the brand's clearest step into skincare. The company calls them the first healing-earth sheet masks in Germany [1]. Each combines healing earth with a second active ingredient:

- Bullrich Heilerde Tuchmaske + Zink, pairing healing earth with zinc, which the company describes as anti-inflammatory - Bullrich Heilerde Tuchmaske + Hyaluronsäure, with a hyaluronic acid complex for moisture - Bullrich Heilerde Tuchmaske + Vitamin C + Retinol, combining the earth with vitamin C (as sodium ascorbyl phosphate) and retinol (as retinyl acetate)

According to the company, the zinc and hyaluronic acid masks contain no fragrance, the zinc and vitamin C versions carry the same dermatest "very good" rating, and the masks are made in Germany.

### Product-level claims

Bullrich makes its ethical and composition claims product by product rather than as a brand-wide pledge. Several products, including the healing-earth capsules, powder and paste, the sheet masks and the Bullrich Salz tablets, are labelled vegan; for the capsules, the brand notes that the capsule shell is of plant origin. The capsules and the ultra-fine powder are described as lactose- and gluten-free. The healing-earth and sheet-mask products are stated to be manufactured in Germany. On sustainability, the company says the sheet-mask cloth is 100 percent biodegradable and that the vitamin C and retinol mask comes in recyclable packaging. No broader sustainability goals or third-party certifications are documented.

Bullrich Säure-Basen-Balance won bronze in the over-the-counter medicines and food supplements category of LebensmittelPraxis's "Produkt des Jahres" (Product of the Year) awards, listed among the 2016 winners in an article dated 24 November 2015 [10]. The same German trade magazine published a profile of the brand in July 2015 under the heading "Mit Bullrich geht's mir gut" ("With Bullrich I feel good"), covering its products and its history.

The brand's broader standing rests on its age. Both the company and German Wikipedia record that the name "Bullrich" became a generic term for baking soda among German consumers.

Bullrich is an active brand. Its website was maintained through 2026, with a facts page published in August 2026 and updated in October 2026, a legal notice dated August 2026 and a copyright line naming Dr. Beckmann Group GmbH. The current range spans Original Bullrich Salz, Bullrich Magen & Darm 2in1 Akut, Säure-Basen-Balance, the Heilerde products and the healing-earth sheet masks. The company names Germany and Austria as its target region.