Creativity and innovation

Creativity and innovation: These are the driving forces in the over 50-year company history of TOGU. In 1956 the brothers Toni and Gust Obermaier won an inventors prize for the implementation of an idea that was both simple and ingenious: To make a ball out of a single piece. In a pot on the stove of their family farm they managed to make the world's first ball without seams, and thus eliminated a weak point which until then had been unavoidable. The brothers combined the first letters of their names and founded the company. Around half a century, numerous registered trade marks and even more patents later the employees today are still characterised by their ability to implement new ideas. TOGU is continually developing the product range and adding to it. For Vera und Giovanni Angelini, the current owners and managers who are the third generation at the head of the company, developing new products is not work but rather a passion. TOGU’s sole manufacturing facility is in Prien, a small town at Lake Chiemsee in Upper Bavaria. Traditionally, the company has offered secure employment for over 100 locals — and that in an industry sector increasingly relying on cheap manufacture from low-wage countries. "The only way for us to respond to customer wishes quickly, while maintaining excellent product quality and environmental standards, is for us to keep our manufacturing processes local." All our new ideas become reality right here, we forego shipping and logistics," is the pragmatic explanation offered by Managing Director Giovanni Angelini. But that is not all: the majority of the production machinery used at the 16,000 square metre facility is designed in-house and built in the region. The conscious decision in favour of remaining an exclusively Germany-based company allows TOGU to comply with the required high environmental standards. All materials and plastics used in the manufacture of TOGU products are recyclable. The excellent quality of the products and their resulting longevity help conserve natural resources and reduce the company’s carbon footprint. With this TOGU takes responsibility for customers, employees and for their "Made in Germany" products