Behälter KG Bremen featured in Weser Kurier

21 October 2025
Weser Kurier Newspaper

Bremen company succeeds with used stainless steel plants

When a production line in a German chemical or food factory is shut down, Julian Beckh is on the spot. The Bremen-based entrepreneur trades in used stainless steel plants – worldwide.

The stainless steel vessel bears catalog number 9785: “Heatable/coolable pharmaceutical process vessel with magnetic agitator,” year of construction 2021, unused – almost like new. The stainless steel 316 is gleaming; spray head, control cabinet, screw lid – everything included. Price: 24,500 euros plus VAT. “Corona vaccines were actually supposed to be produced in it,” explains Julian Beckh as he looks at the piece. “But other manufacturers were faster.” The vaccine reactor was never put into operation. Now Beckh is trying to sell it on the used equipment market. Because that is his business.

Viewed from the air, the company premises of Behälter KG in the industrial area at the Bremer Kreuz look like a tank farm. Vessels made of stainless steel are scattered across the two-football-field-sized site: round, oval and rectangular, silver and gray, large and small. “This used to be a wine tank from a winegrowers’ cooperative,” Beckh explains in passing. Now a lubricant manufacturer has bought the vessel – it is ready for collection.

Since 1965, Behälter KG has been trading in used stainless steel plants – worldwide. “We have customers from Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Arabia, India and the USA,” says company head Beckh. Whatever is decommissioned and shut down somewhere in Germany is purchased in order to resell it to bargain hunters around the world. “My parents immediately understood the business model,” Beckh explains with a laugh. “That’s why I bought the company.”

That was eight years ago. The Stuttgart native had spent his early professional years in the fast-paced world of investment banking: mergers, sales, corporate takeovers – the really big wheel. “I worked seven days a week, usually well past midnight,” he recalls. He hardly ever saw his girlfriend. That couldn’t go on.

So he started looking: for a small company that was seeking a successor at the top. “That’s not that difficult,” the 33-year-old assures. The topic of business succession has been a perennial issue ever since the transfer of a company from father to son as the only possible success model has become obsolete. On the website of the German Entrepreneurs’ Exchange (DUB), hundreds of companies are listed for sale, sorted by industry, region and revenue. Three or four came into closer consideration for Beckh – with his parents acting as a control instance for a clear, comprehensible business model.

The then owner of Behälter KG wanted to sell his company for health reasons. On day one after the change of ownership, he had already left the company. “I really jumped in at the deep end,” Beckh recalls – and first had to find his bearings: not only as a newcomer to Bremen in a foreign city, but also as a newcomer to the industry in the world of pressure and insulated tanks, mixing tanks and process reactors. Because even if his parents found the business model convincing: the second-hand trade in stainless steel vessels is a wide field.

12,000 companies in the customer database
The equipment is used in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and chemical industries. “So you need a large network and have to know where opportunities arise,” Beckh explains. The customer database comprises 12,000 companies. At the Bremer Kreuz, they systematically scour the internet for reports of insolvencies, site closures or company relocations. “We are something like an economic indicator,” reveals the used equipment dealer: when things start going downhill in an industry, the buyers of decommissioned plants are the first to notice.

Beckh considers his own business to be stable: “In 60 years, Behälter KG has not had a single year of losses,” the boss assures. The company employs 20 people and now also has new stainless steel vessels manufactured in Italy in order to supplement the range of used plants. The website, with its 2,500 items, is soon to be expanded from three to eight languages.

Beckh himself has turned the acquisition of small companies that are looking for a successor into a business model: with his own investment company, he has meanwhile acquired stakes in four additional companies, including the Bremen steam generator manufacturer Dino. As a result, his working days have not necessarily become shorter – “it’s certainly not a 35-hour week with free weekends,” Beckh admits. “But now I can reap my own rewards.” For example, when selling vaccine vessels from the coronavirus period, capacity 165 liters, unused – catalog number 9785.