It all began with Benno, who was still living in his shared flat in Cologne.
Alongside studying sports, he was a self-employed sports masseur and climbing instructor as well as a route setter. And what do you need for these jobs? Right! Working, healthy hands. But because bouldering and climbing in particular put the skin under a lot of strain, and the magnesium (for grip on the wall) only makes the problem worse, a hand cream was needed that solves these problems.
So Benno set out on the search
...for a sustainable, organic hand cream that would care for and heal his battered hands. But almost all the creams at the pharmacy and drugstore come packed in plastic tubes that end up in the recycling bag after a single use. Something else that bugged Benno: almost all creams list "AQUA" as their first ingredient, i.e. water, and to work that out and decode the other ingredients you pretty much need a degree in Latin.
Solid, refillable, and made from just five organic ingredients.
No suitable hand cream could be found. So he decided to make a hand cream himself, for himself and his climbing community. In his shared-flat kitchen in the Belgian Quarter in the heart of Cologne he experimented and made the first Daumenschmaus: beeswax from a friend and various ingredients from the organic shop around the corner. It went down so well with his circle of friends that the first 12 Daumenschmaus jars sold out straight away.
It wasn't only Benno's friends who were won over by the product and how well it works.
Their shared schoolfriend Lennart and his brother Fritz were soon on board, and plans were hatched for how to not only make and sell cosmetics, but also create social value. The idea of a social business focused on real ecological value has been at the core of the venture from the start.
Creating social value and profit through entrepreneurship
The Kiel university network with yooweedoo refined the idea of "social entrepreneurship", and before long Marc (Fritz's former flatmate) was fired up too. That's how the idea came about: to leave a meaningful impact tied to the product rather than dependent on profit. As regional, fast and effective as possible. A wildflower meadow to protect insects and bees was an obvious fit, since organic beeswax is a main ingredient of the Daumenschmaus.
Planting trees had long been a worn-out marketing promise.
A wildflower meadow, on the other hand, works regionally, stores CO2 quickly, offers a habitat for insects of all kinds and gives the soil a breather. Because many people aren't aware: the loss of species is the planetary boundary that's already been crossed the most (ahead of climate change), and the consequences can't be foreseen.
The first production was set up in Westensee, at Benno and Fritz's family home.
Not quite up to hygiene standards yet, but functional and cheap, the first production was put together, and on weekends after uni the Daumenschmaus was made. At peak times 400 jars a day were produced. But the first orders were already coming in (picture with the stack of parcels) and 30 bouldering gyms wanted to be supplied. For the first six months, Lennart, Benno, Fritz and Marc were producing almost every other weekend. The beeswax has been supplied by Dorothea in demeter quality from the very start.
The first office of our own with clean-room production in Hamburg
Things got too cramped at the family home, the Daumenschmaus project was taking up too much time "on the side". So the jobs were handed in, the dissertations quickly written, and the move into a first office in Hamburg with its own production was coming up. At the same time new products were being developed, the impact model with the wildflower-meadow donation was rolled out across Germany, and 4peoplewhocare was founded as a GmbH.
11 employees, 350,000 sqm of wildflower meadow and 12 products
By now our packaging looks a little different.
Over time, production has become quite a bit more professional, and even now it's still constantly being rethought and improved.
Here's what else has happened:
We've moved our production within Hamburg,
since 2023 we've also been shipping our products to shops outside the DACH region, and we're on the shelves in a few big organic chains.
So we've really been busy, but we're also very grateful to you for your support in the form of reviews and purchases with us.
Here's to many more years of 4 people who care!
Leave a comment
This site is protected by hCaptcha and the hCaptcha Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.