Appreciation engineered to perfection

Sausage and ham are highly sensual products that we appreciate through our sense of smell, touch, and taste. However, The Family Butchers boasts a long and successful tradition not only in flavor but in innovative spirit as well.

As early as 1934, Hermann Kemper applied for a patent for a fully functioning variable switch for use with electromagnetic levitation (EML). Far ahead of his time, Kemper planned to use this tube railing technology as a high-speed transportation system of the future.

Clever and convenient, the technology later aroused the interest of traffic planners. Magnetic levitation (maglev) for passenger transportation was first demonstrated at the 1979 International Traffic Exhibition in Hamburg. Only one year later, the famous test track for maglev trains near Lathen, Germany was built.

In 1994, the German federal cabinet approved a resolution to build a high-speed maglev rail connection between Hamburg and Berlin. However, years of changeful political decisions impeded completion of the project. Then, in 2006, the Lathen maglev train collided tragically with a maintenance vehicle, marking the end of Transrapid in Germany. However, in China a Transrapid train has been commuting regularly for 14 hours a day since 2002; it covers the 30-kilometer track in only 7 minutes 18 seconds.

But Hermann Kemper’s original idea lives on today. For example, in Thyssen’s new generations of cable-free elevator. Thyssen is even planning the world’s first sideways-moving lifts.

At The Family Butchers’ premises in Nortrup, an original Transrapid train stands as a memorial to the innovative idea of EML, motivating the younger generation to rethink and evolve tomorrow’s sausage and ham products. Used today as a meeting space, the atmosphere of the Transrapid stands as a reminder of the original to everyone who sees it.