From historic plough manufacturer to modern production

AMAZONE factory overview, part 3: BBG Leipzig

After reunification in 1989, many companies in the new federal states faced major challenges. Technically outdated and with dwindling markets, they had difficulties competing.

This was also the case for BBG. The company traces its origins back to the founding of the company "RUD. SACK" by Rudolph Sack in 1863. Before the Second World War, this company was the largest plough and seed drill manufacturer in the world. After the political change in 1989, BBG was placed under the administration of a trust and went through an uncertain period with several changes of ownership. The number of employees had shrunk from over 3,000 to only around 140.
1994 saw a move from the old headquarters of the company "RUD. SACK" in Karl-Heine-Straße in Leipzig-Plagwitz to its current location in Rippachtalstraße in the Großzschocher district. Finally, BBG became a subsidiary of the AMAZONE Group in 1998.  
BBG was of interest to us because it manufactured passive soil tillage equipment such as seedbed combinations, cultivators, ploughs and even self-propelled crop protection sprayers.
Since part of the product range was technologically outdated, AMAZONE developed new equipment within a short space of time, streamlined the range and modernised the company at great financial expense. 

BBG is therefore the only agricultural engineering company from the GDR era that has managed to survive successfully on the market. The introduction of our Catros compact disc harrow range, which is still being produced and continuously developed there today, has certainly contributed to this. We are very proud of the fact that BBG has grown into a respected, modern company with around 350 employees. Equipped with an automotive-industry standard paint shop, numerous state-of-the-art machine tools, newly built halls, a test track for our cultivators and extensive trials fields around the site, we are looking to the future with optimism.