Schoenenberger

Schoenenberger is a German maker of fresh-plant juices based in Magstadt, near Stuttgart. It was founded by the pharmacist Walther Schoenenberger, who developed a way of pressing medicinal plants without preservatives, and it still trades as Walther Schoenenberger Pflanzensaftwerk GmbH & Co. KG ("Pflanzensaftwerk" means plant-juice works). Its core business is herbal medicinal juices, together with fruit and vegetable juices. A much smaller natural-cosmetics segment covers hair care only, sold under the DALIO, Pflegeshampoo+ and ExtraHair names.

Schoenenberger is no longer an independent company. It has belonged to the Salus Group, a natural-remedies manufacturer based in Bruckmühl, Bavaria, since 1991 [13], and it continues as a brand within that group. It remained active in 2026, issuing press releases and adding new products.

Walther Schoenenberger (1901–1982) became interested in plant juices while he was still studying pharmacy. According to the company, he was convinced that a plant could only show its full healing effect through the interplay of all its constituents, and that substances such as flavonoids and tannins are found at their highest concentration in the fresh plant. He began experimenting in his mother's kitchen with gentle ways of pressing freshly picked plants. Preservatives were ruled out from the start, since the juice was meant to stay pure.

The company's own history dates the founding of its plant-juice works near Stuttgart to 1927 [3]. Its starting capital, the company says, was an idea and his fiancée's savings book. Among the first products were juices of nettle, coltsfoot and hawthorn. Historical photographs published by the company show the early works housed in an old brewery in Magstadt.

The year 1927 is also given by the German Wikipedia article on the parent company and by the German pharmacy trade publication apotheke adhoc [14]. The German Wikipedia article on the founder, however, dates the start of his plant-juice company in Magstadt to 1928 [12]. That article describes Schoenenberger as a Swiss pharmacist, born in Altstetten near Zürich in June 1901, who died in Sindelfingen in December 1982. Some older wording on the company's website also speaks of the firm making its juices "for 90 years", a figure that matches 2017 rather than the present. This article follows the company's explicit date of 1927.

Over the following decades the works was rebuilt and enlarged, and more staff were taken on. Schoenenberger campaigned for natural medicine, and the company counts one result among his greatest successes: in 1961, "pressed juices from fresh plants" were included in the German Medicines Act as medicines that can be sold without a prescription [3]. The company also credits him with reviving, in the 1920s, the old practice of treating ailments with pressed plant juices. In 1971 he received Germany's Federal Cross of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz) for his life's work.

Schoenenberger died in 1982. In the same year a gas heat pump in the company's warehouse won the Preis der deutschen Gaswirtschaft, an energy-efficiency prize from the German gas industry.

Nine years later the company joined the Salus Group. In autumn 2007 it moved into a new production site in Magstadt covering about 3,500 square metres, with production lines, a quality-control laboratory and a logistics facility. The company puts the total investment at the site at €10 million. At the opening, Salus owner Otto Greither said the group was looking to the future with confidence and wanted to send a signal to the region.

From 2009 Schoenenberger has supported the "111-Arten-Korb" ("basket of 111 species") project, part of a biodiversity action plan run by the Baden-Württemberg state ministry for rural affairs. Its contribution centres on the red-backed shrike, a bird on the Red List of threatened species: together with local schools, the company plants thorny hedges that give the bird a place to live. It also supports a nature trail in Magstadt set up by a local environmental working group.

Salus acquired Schoenenberger in 1991 [13]. The buyer was itself an old name in natural medicine: Salus Haus was founded in Munich in 1916 by the physician Dr. Otto Greither, who devised the "Salus-Kur" health regimen. Schoenenberger presents the deal under the heading "from competitor to partner", describing the two as specialists in plant-based medicines whose know-how complemented each other.

According to apotheke adhoc, Salus took over the Magstadt plant-juice works in 1991 and then broadened its range with medicines, foods and cosmetics [14]. The same 2015 profile names other parts of the group, including the Floradix, Olbas and Vollmers tea brands, the herbal supplier Herbaria and the health-food-store chain Vitalia. Schoenenberger's own website lists Hensel food products and Olbas as related brands.

At the time of that profile, the publication reported that the Salus Group had around 400 employees, annual revenue of about €100 million and exports to more than 60 countries. The German Wikipedia article on Salus gives later figures of 464 employees and €122 million in revenue.

For close to seven decades the group was led by Otto Greither, who as a young man took over the business his parents had built. He died on 5 September 2026 at the age of 101 [9]. The German Wikipedia article on Salus names Florian Block alongside him in the company's management.

The company's guiding idea is the juice of the whole fresh plant in its purest form. It sums this up in the line "Die Pflanzen. Die Heilkraft. Der Saft. Und sonst nichts" ("The plants. The healing power. The juice. And nothing else."). Schoenenberger uses the term "Wirkstoffring" (roughly, "ring of active compounds") for the full mix of substances in a plant, on the principle that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

That idea rests on the pressing method. According to the company, its gentle process releases the constituents from the fresh plant and leaves them largely in their natural state. The juices are bottled without extraction agents, alcohol, preservatives or other additives. Schoenenberger says most of the raw materials for its medicinal juices come from strictly controlled organic farming, and many are grown around Magstadt under a regional cultivation scheme run with a contract nursery. The German Wikipedia article on Salus likewise states that a large share of the raw materials for the pressed juices is grown in and around Magstadt [13].

The cosmetics follow the same thinking. Their tagline, "Natürlich schön mit der Kraft der Pflanzen" ("naturally beautiful with the power of plants"), frames hair care as an extension of the juice business, with organic fresh-plant juices as the ingredient that ties the lines together. The products are aimed at German health-food stores, known as Reformhäuser: product pages state that they are available only as Reformhaus products, and they are also sold through organic shops and online pharmacies.

Medicinal juices remain the heart of the range. The company lists more than 30 medicinal plant juices, grouped under themes such as immunity, colds, joints, heart and circulation, sleep, and digestion, along with twelve fruit and vegetable juices. Hawthorn and nettle, two of the first juices in 1927, are still part of it.

The natural-cosmetics segment consists of three hair-care lines with around 30 products in total.

DALIO is the largest, with 18 products across six lines: Aufbau (restoring), Sensitiv, Volumen, Repair & Care, Locken (curls) and Styling. Each line pairs a shampoo with a matching conditioner and a specialist product. Every DALIO product contains organic dandelion, used from root to leaf tip. The company says dandelion supports the scalp's regeneration, soothes the skin and can even help against dandruff.

Pflegeshampoo+ is a series of six shampoos, each built around a single organic fresh-plant juice: acerola, aloe, birch, lemon balm, pomegranate or ginger. The company describes the series as combining its medicinal plant juices with ingredients certified to natural-cosmetics standards.

The ExtraHair Hair Care System is aimed at specific hair and scalp needs. Its six products include an anti-ageing caffeine shampoo with birch and horsetail juices and organic caffeine, an anti-dandruff shampoo with nettle juice, a two-minute hair treatment with argan oil, a herbal hair tonic, a styling foam with bamboo extract and hair-care tablets.

The DALIO Aufbau shampoo was tested by Dermatest, a dermatological testing laboratory, in a study commissioned by the manufacturer. The product was applied under a covered patch for 24 hours on 30 people with all skin types, and their skin was checked up to 72 hours later; no subject showed any irritation [15]. The laboratory's listing also describes the shampoo as vegan and certified under the COSMOS natural-cosmetics standard, with 98.5 per cent of its ingredients of natural origin, and states that it is made at the Schoenenberger plant near Stuttgart.

Alongside its own lines, the company offers contract manufacturing from its Magstadt site.

Schoenenberger has been certified under EMAS, the European Union's eco-management and audit scheme, since 1997 [8]. In 2024 it added certification under the We impact standard together with the Salus Group, and the company says this made it the first company in Germany to hold it. It runs on 100 per cent green electricity, and since 2014 its own 535 kWp rooftop solar installation has covered, by its account, about 70 per cent of its energy needs. In 2016 it received an award from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Environment in the category for industrial companies with up to 250 employees.

The sustainability page also sets out the five guidelines of the Salus Group. One of them reads, in translation, "Whoever loves nature conserves its resources"; another holds that acting for the good of people and nature means going well beyond legal requirements.

Schoenenberger is an acquired brand: it has been part of the Salus Group since 1991 and operates within it rather than as an independent company. It remains active. In June 2026 it issued press releases on echinacea and ginger and announced a premium matcha addition to its green-tea range. In September 2026 it published a notice on the death of Salus owner Otto Greither, and a 2026 press release marked 125 years since Walther Schoenenberger's birth [11]. By the company's own dating, Schoenenberger reaches its centenary in 2027.

Its main market is Germany. The social media channels linked from its website are those of the Salus Group.