Brita GmbH is a German manufacturer of

water filter A water filter removes impurities by lowering contamination of water using a fine physical barrier, a chemical process, or a biological process. Filters cleanse water to different extents, for purposes such as: providing agricultural irrigation, ...

s headquartered in

Taunusstein Taunusstein () is the biggest town in the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis in the of Darmstadt (region), Darmstadt in Hessen, Germany. It has 30,068 inhabitants (2020). Geography Location Taunusstein lies roughly 10 km northwest of Wiesbaden and abou ...

near

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

. The company's manufacturing facilities are located in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. Brita products are distributed in 69 countries.

Products

Brita produces water

jug A jug is a type of container commonly used to hold and serve liquids, but not normally to drink from directly. It has an opening, sometimes narrow, from which to pour or drink, and has a handle, and usually a pouring lip. Jugs throughout histor ...

s ( BPA-free, made of

styrene Styrene is an organic compound with the chemical formula C6H5CH=CH2. Its structure consists of a vinyl group as substituent on benzene. Styrene is a colorless, oily liquid, although aged samples can appear yellowish. The compound evaporates easi ...

methyl methacrylate Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is an organic compound with the formula . This colorless liquid, the methyl ester of methacrylic acid (MAA), is a monomer produced on a large scale for the production of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). History MMA ...

copolymer In polymer chemistry, a copolymer is a polymer derived from more than one species of monomer. The polymerization of monomers into copolymers is called copolymerization. Copolymers obtained from the copolymerization of two monomer species are som ...

), and tap attachments with integrated disposable filters. The filters can be recycled. Their primary filtering mechanism consists of

activated carbon Activated carbon, also called activated charcoal, is a form of carbon commonly used to filter contaminants from water and air, among many other uses. It is processed (activated) to have small, low-volume pores that greatly increase the surface ar ...

and

ion-exchange resin An ion-exchange resin or ion-exchange polymer is a resin or polymer that acts as a medium for ion exchange, that is also known as an ionex. It is an insoluble matrix (or support structure) normally in the form of small (0.25–1.43 mm radiu ...

. The activated carbon is produced from

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (biology), family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, ...

shells."Questions about products and water filtration"
Brita UK. Retrieved 2018-04-03. According to Brita, the filters have two effects: * The activated carbon removes substances that may impair taste, such as

chlorine Chlorine is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate between ...

and chlorine compounds. * The ion-exchange resin reduces the carbonate hardness (limescale) as well as copper and lead. In the United Kingdom,

Hinari Hinari Access to Research for Health Programme was set up by the World Health Organization and major publishers to enable developing countries to access collections of biomedical and health literature. There are up to 15,000 e-journals and up to ...

and Breville sell electric kettles incorporating Brita technology.

History

Brita was founded in 1966 by Heinz Hankammer. The company was first named AquaDeMat before he later named the company after his daughter. The company secured the first patent for domestic water filter use in the 1970s. In 1988, The

Clorox The Clorox Company (formerly Clorox Chemical Company) is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer and professional products. As of 2024, the Oakland, California-based company had approximately 8,000 employees worldwide. N ...

Company, based in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

, entered in a licensing-and-distribution agreement with the German company for North and South America. In 1995, it added the Canadian rights by acquiring Canada's Brita International Holdings. In 2000, Clorox acquired the sole rights to the brand in the Americas and Brita agreed to a

non-compete clause In contract law, a non-compete clause (often NCC), restrictive covenant, or covenant not to compete (CNC), is a clause under which one party (usually an employee) agrees not to enter into or start a similar profession or trade in competition again ...

until 2005. In 2008, Brita returned to the North American market under the brand Mavea, only to withdraw again in 2016."The Best Water Filter Pitcher"
'' Wirecutter''. Retrieved 2018-04-03. However, products are still sold in the US under the Brita brand.

References

External links

*
Brita UK website

Mavea
website for Brita's U.S. brand that is not licensed to Clorox. {{Clorox Water filters Kitchenware brands Manufacturing companies of Germany Companies based in Hesse Manufacturing companies established in 1966 1966 establishments in West Germany German brands Clorox brands German companies established in 1966