Dannhauer - 2013 - Deutscher Reishandel 1850 bis 1914 die zentrale R

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the small rice industry was able to develop without
any customs barriers. For this reason, Andreas
Rickmers acquired in 1893 a share of the
Anton Deppe & Co. rice mill in Hamburg and
thus secured a foothold in a second location in
Germany. He proceeded with a similar strategy
in those countries which had been lost to the
German rice industry as a result of customs barriers
or local competition. In 1895 Andreas Rickmers
succeeded in completing a contract which
saw the Rickmers AG and its 50% subsidiary
Hamburger Reismühle becoming shareholders
in the “Erste Triester Reisschälfabrik”. This led
to the regaining of recently lost major markets
in Europe and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In
cooperation with the plant in Trieste, the two
Rickmers AG mills in Bremen and Hamburg
founded another production unit in 1898 in Aussig
on the Elbe. Andreas Rickmers thus consolidated
his market position in Austria while at the
same allowing himself access to border areas of
Germany which had previously been beyond the
reach of polished rice producers in northern Germany.
This development also raised Hamburg’s
importance as a rice producing location since it
was from here that the Aussig facility (downstream
from Hamburg, also on the Elbe) was
supplied with both technical equipment and raw
material.
Changes like these are an indication of how
highly developed the international rice market
had become. In order to make a profit, the opportunities
presented by any given location had
to be exploited to the full; failing this, re-location
was the only alternative. There can be no doubt
that the rice market was a globalised market.
This was not only because rice was sourced initially
from America, then from Asia and finally
in the Twentieth Century from America again.
Another illustration of this intertwining within
the rice market could be seen in the fact that
Rickmers AG had become the first non-British
company to acquire a rice mill in Asia. In 1894
the company bought the Markwald & Co. rice
mill in Bangkok and proceeded to make it the
largest rice producing plant in Siam (Thailand).
Adolph Markwald is assumed to have been the
founder. He was a German and worked as a merchant
in Siam, but he was not a rice trader. And
so the purchase by Rickmers AG meant that
theirs was the first operation of a German rice
trader in Asia.
Reis- und Handels AG
The transition from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth
Century involved a drop in prominence for
the entire European continent in the international
rice trade. As a result of the close ties between
Europe and Asia, Asian firms were able to adopt
European skills and technology. Shorter shipping
times meant that fully processed rice from
Asia could now be transported to Europe and
America with little loss in quality. This did not
make the European mills completely redundant,
but it did mean that they were no longer essential
to the international rice market.
Rickmers AG reacted by advocating a union of
all German rice milling companies. This was
achieved in 1901 with the founding of the Reisund
Handels AG. Nevertheless, the Bremenbased
rice concern was not able to establish a
true monopoly. This was due to the fear in Germany
of being subject to uncontrolled pricing
policies. But the Reis- und Handels AG did hold
a quasi-monopoly until about 1910. It was only
then that a few smaller rice mills in Hamburg
succeeded in gaining any kind of foothold in the
German rice industry. By founding the Reis- und
Handels AG, Andreas Rickmers improved the
position of German rice traders who were in
competition with British shippers in Burma. An
agreement was reached which banned British
shippers from exporting polished rice to Germany.
This guaranteed the survival of the German
mills, but in return they were forced to
source their entire supply of raw material from
the shippers’ monopoly. In spite of this development,
international rice trade via Germany continued
to decline as more and more commerce
was carried out directly with Burma.
In 1906 the Reis- und Handels AG leased several