Founded by Ayhan and Dr Karl Busch in 1963, today Busch Vacuum Solutions is a world leader in the vacuum packaging market with 8,000 employees and 110 subsidiaries worldwide.
The company has production facilities in China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Korea, Romania, Switzerland, the UK, the USA and Vietnam. The international Busch Group also includes Pfeiffer Vacuum AG, the vacuum pump manufacturer based in northern Hesse, Germany.
Busch Vacuum Solutions is jointly managed by Ayhan and Dr Karl Busch, as well as their three children Ayla, Sami and Kaya Busch. The Busch family still makes all major decisions together, a principle that Ayhan Busch established.
Ayhan and Dr Karl Busch met in Munich, where she studied medicine and he mechanical engineering. In 1960, Dr Karl Busch received his doctorate on the subject of “Friction and wear in water-lubricated rotary compressors.” He then went on to work as a design manager in the machine factory owned by his grandfather, Karl Wittig, in Schopfheim, Germany. In 1963, he and his wife founded “Dr-Ing Karl Busch GmbH” there. The company relocated to Maulburg, the neighboring village, in 1972, where it remains today.
When self-service supermarkets started in Germany in the early 1960s, Dr Karl Busch developed the Huckepack, the first vacuum pump specifically for packaging food. Huckepack, the German word for piggyback, is a compact and robust vacuum pump with pump stages arranged one above the other.
Ayhan Busch recognized early on the importance of international expansion and in 1971, Busch established its first foreign branch in the UK. In just 15 years, another 18 subsidiaries and four production facilities followed all over the world. In 1981, Busch was the first German industrial company to sign a cooperation agreement for production in China.
With Huckepack’s successor, the R5, an oil-lubricated rotary vane vacuum pump, the company became a world market leader in the vacuum packaging sector.
