Skills developed over more than 35 years

A milestone for CBRN protection

After founding his own company in 1935, Alfred Kärcher succeeded in developing Europe`s first hot water high-pressure cleaner in 1950. The know-how in combustion and heat transfer technology proved to be so forward-looking that it is still the basis of most of our systems today.

Only nine years later, in 1959, the company set the first milestone towards decontamination with the DS 570, a high-pressure cleaner for the application of decontamination and cleaning agents. The first contracts were concluded with German armed forces, resulting in a long and successful cooperation that continues to this day.

A new department

Due to the great importance of decontamination and field camp systems, Kärcher founded a new department at the end of the 1970s. The department was responsible for the military market as well as civil protection and disaster control. In 2005, this department became the independent subsidiary Kärcher Futuretech.

The first sales in the new department included several hundred HDS 1200 high-pressure cleaners, suitable for the decontamination of large equipment. The device has been further developed and modified since that day and is still sold successfully today.

Mobile catering in the 80s

With the development of our first burner in 1982, we build the foundation for mobile catering. Two years later, the first prototype of our tactical field kitchen (TFK 250) was produced.After intensive further development in 1988, it was handed over to a German military organisation for the first time. Since then, our TFK 250 has been continuously developed and produced over 3000 times in our production facility in Obersontheim.

Due to the international success of the TFK 250, investments were made in a new development in the mobile catering sector, which resulted in the modular field kitchen (MFK) just a few years later. Since then, its modular design has developed to cover a wide variety of preparation methods and responded to country-specific eating habits. 2018 saw the launch of the MFK 2, the enhanced model of the modular field kitchen, which has an improved chassis and many other innovations.

Water treatment in the early 90s

In the early 90s, Kärcher started the development and production of mobile water treatment plants. These were deployed shortly afterwards in areas affected by the great floods of 1993 in the Midwest of America and in 1999 by the earthquake in Izmit in Turkey. Due to the successful introduction, we expanded our product portfolio in the area of drinking water supply systems.

Foundation of the subsidiary and own company headquarters

The constant growth of the department within Kärcher led to the founding of the independent subsidiary Kärcher Futuretech in 2005. Kärcher Futuretech is still in close contact with Kärcher today.

In October 2011 Kärcher Futuretech also moved to the new company headquarters in Schwaikheim. The company premises include a building complex for development, administration, sales and training as well as facilities for the production, repair, quality control and service of our products.

Futuretech - Model VDM 265 - Vacuum Decontamination Module Datasheet