Erkolin

Erkolin is a small, family-run German company that makes and sells two herbal balms under the product name Erkolan: the 20-Kräuter-Hautbalsam, a skin balm made with twenty herbs, and the Eucamenth-Brustbalsam, a chest balm. The business was founded in 1954 by Erwin Kock in Weilimdorf, a district of Stuttgart [2], and trades today as erkolin-Kosmetik from Nauroth in the Westerwald region of Rhineland-Palatinate [5]. It began as a dealer in furniture polish and only moved into personal care in the 1960s.

The company has remained in the hands of the Kock family and has built its business on mail order and direct contact with customers rather than on retail marketing. Its current activity is uncertain: the website remains online and still takes orders, but its company history ends in 2018 and no later public activity is documented.

Erwin Kock founded the firm in Stuttgart-Weilimdorf in 1954 [2]. Two years later, in 1956, the company moved its seat to Weissach in Württemberg. At that time its main trade was not cosmetics at all but furniture polishes, according to the company's own account of its history [2].

The firm writes its own name in lower case as "erkolin", while its balms are sold under the slightly different mark Erkolan, so the two names are often used side by side.

From the 1960s the range widened from polishes to cleaning and care products. The turning point came in 1965, when the two balms entered the range. The company describes them as a natural cosmetic product and says they were introduced quickly through intensive direct advertising. In its telling, the balms have held their own against other well-known products ever since and became an important pillar of the firm's later success [2].

In 1975 the company added a second, non-cosmetic line: soup seasonings and sauces. That food range has kept growing, and today erkolin-Kosmetik distributes soups, sauces, salad products and seasonings of the "tellofix" brand of Inter-Planing GmbH [3]. The same year marks the start of parcel mail order, which the company describes as an important part of its approach alongside its earlier practice of delivering directly from the works [1].

The family took on a growing share of the work over the following decades. Doris Kock, the founder's wife, took over shipping management in 1976. Ralf-Jürgen Kock, born in 1966, joined in 1990 as sales and shipping manager.

Erwin Kock died in 1996, and Ralf-Jürgen Kock took over the management of the company. The company's own website gives two dates for this handover. Its dated timeline places it in 1996, in the same entry that records the founder's death, while a staff introduction on the same page says he took over management in 1995 [2]. In 1997 he became managing owner.

Janine Kock joined the sales team in 2008 and was later named shipping manager. In 2013 the company left Baden-Württemberg, where it had been based since its founding, and moved to Nauroth in Rhineland-Palatinate. The firm marked its 60th anniversary in 2014.

Erkolin is owned and run by Ralf-Jürgen Kock. The company's legal notice lists erkolin-Kosmetik with him as proprietor ("Inhaber") and as the person responsible for the business [5]. No parent company, investors or acquisitions are documented.

Customer satisfaction is the company's stated first rule. Its homepage opens with the line "Zufriedenheit der Kunden – oberstes Gebot!" ("customer satisfaction – the highest priority"), and Erkolin says that since its founding the goal has been to exceed what customers expect, both from the product itself and from the service that comes with buying it [1].

Direct contact with customers is central to how the firm describes itself. It calls this contact a load-bearing part of its concept and says it has worked with parcel carriers so that most orders arrive within three days, sometimes within one. Its long-running slogan, "wir garantieren prompte Lieferung" ("we guarantee prompt delivery"), has followed the company from Württemberg to its present site. In its most recent dated note, from 2018, the company says it tries wherever possible to stay in personal or telephone contact with its long-standing customers, and thanks them for their feedback.

The cosmetic range is limited to two products, both sold in tins of 50 ml and 5 ml:

- Erkolan 20-Kräuter-Hautbalsam – a herbal skin balm whose name refers to twenty herbs. The individual herbs are not named publicly. - Erkolan Eucamenth-Brustbalsam – a chest balm. The company does not explain the name "Eucamenth".

Each product carries a German pharmacy product number (Pharmazentralnummer, or PZN), the identification code used for items sold through pharmacies in Germany [3]. No other cosmetic products, ingredient claims or third-party certifications are documented. Beyond the balms, the company's catalogue consists of the tellofix food products it distributes.

The status of the business is unclear. Erkolin's website is still online and still offers an order page, but its content has not changed since June 2018, and the company timeline it publishes ends that year [2]. No independent coverage, press reports or other sources describe the firm's activity after that date. There is also no notice of closure. The company remains a single-country operation based in Germany.