Hygiene starts with MEIKO
Wherever food is eaten, wherever healthcare is delivered, wherever lives are saved. This is where you will find MEIKO technology.
We fulfil the key human need for cleanliness and hygiene in these areas. We have been doing this for more than 90 years, since the beginning of hygiene as we understand it today.
Join us on a journey through time
We have been accumulating knowledge and deepening our understanding of medical devices and cleaning and disinfection technology since the 1930s –
making us one of the first players on the hospital hygiene stage.
Our expertise in the medical sector forms the basis of our mastery of hygiene. It feeds into the ongoing development of all MEIKO products, including warewashing technology.
The history of hygiene and the formation of MEIKO are closely interwoven. Read on to find out how, along with which players on the hygiene stage, as we understand them today, were significant influencers.
Mid-19th century:
Ignaz Semmelweis was the first doctor to recognise the link between infections and a lack of hand hygiene. However, his recommendations for hand disinfection were met with resistance and ridicule.
End of the 19th century:
The first highly developed microscopes and X-rays provide deeper insights, breaking entirely new ground for hygiene as a means of prevention. Rendering germs visible heralds the advent of hygiene as we now understand it today: a reliable means of eliminating bacteria, viruses and pathogens.
1927:
Company founders Oskar Meier and Franz Konrad produce MEIKO’s first dishwashing machine. As well as making chores easier, reducing breakages and making sensible use of resources, their aims also included improving cleanliness and hygiene – even in these very early days.
1934:
So, just a few years later, they started to manufacture cleaning and disinfection appliances for hospitals.
The first professorship for hygiene in Germany (bestowed on Max von Pettenkofer) wasn’t even 70 years old at this point. Aseptic operating theatres and sterilisers, along with rubber gloves and face masks, had only been introduced in recent decades.