The history of our company

For more than 100 years, hand-made chocolate truffles, Baumkuchen and chocolate bars with exotic, unusual and very special flavors such as chili or sea salt have been sent from Osnabrück all over the world.

The history of the Leysieffer Company began in April 1909 when the pastry chef Ulrich Leysieffer and his wife Emilie opened up a pastry and coffee shop. Three years later, they moved to Krahnstraße where the company is still situated today. In 1936, the production of chocolate truffles started right here. The business, destroyed during World War II, was reopened by Karl and Ursula Leysieffer in exactly the same place in 1950. This was also the year of the birth of the “Himmlische” - round chocolate truffles rolled in sugar.

In 1960, the company experienced erratic expansion with the mail order business starting in 1964. In 1967, Axel Leysieffer from the 3rd family generation joined the company. The business developed at a satisfactory rate so that in 1973 the production facility in Osnabrück-Atter was begun.

Seeing a niche in the market, Axel Leysieffer developed a new form of event catering and opened the first bistro in Westerland, Sylt, in 1985. This extraordinary food service concept was then constantly expanded with more and more stores and bistros opening up all over Germany. Today, Leysieffer operates 16 confectionery shops, 6 bistros and coffee shops as well as about 100 partner shops. In 1993, the fourth generation came on board with Jan Leysieffer. In 1998, the online shop was launched at www.leysieffer.de.

In March 1989, the publishing company, Deutscher Fachverlag awarded Leysieffer the “Hamburg Prize” because of its innovative gastronomic concept, while in 1995, Axel Leysieffer received an award from the city of Dusseldorf "Lebendige Innenstadt (Lively city center)". Both emphasize the vivid development of the family-owned company. Leysieffer is always keen to experiment with and to develop new flavours by using ingredients such as pepper, chili, ginger and elder for their products. This highlights the fact that there is no limit to Leysieffer's creativity. However, creativity is just the icing on the cake; the high quality is based on premium ingredients, elimination of artificial substances and artisan skills.