Our heritage

After more than 90 years the vision is still contemporary

Right up to the present day Weleda remains true to the strongly-held spiritual principles of our founders, and their effects resonate throughout our company.

Weleda was founded in 1921 by the Austrian philosopher and natural scientist, Rudolf Steiner, Dutch doctor Ita Wegman and Oskar Schmiedel, a chemist and pharmacist from Munich in Germany. The company is still based on the philosophic ideology and high values of anthroposophy.

A company based on anthroposophy: 'the wisdom of man'

Anthroposophy is a spiritual world view with European roots, now established all over the world. It was named and formulated by Weleda’s founder Rudolf Steiner, who translated the name to mean ‘the wisdom of man’.

By contrast to some present-day practice in academic and university circles, Steiner used the term to refer to the investigation of the spiritual realm through scientific and spiritual experience, and it was this to which he devoted his work. Steiner’s anthroposophy takes its starting point from exact scientific thinking, with equally exact research methods, initially limited to the world of matter, then extended to the spiritual through science.

Translated to the reality of a modern day company

We as a company have imbued these values through all our operations – in our bio-dynamic farming, fair treatment of staff and stakeholders, sustainable manufacturing processes and cosmetic and pharmaceutical products. We continue to develop in many countries through committed people who appreciate our ethos, and we are now the world’s leading manufacturer of holistic, natural, organic cosmetics and pharmaceuticals for anthroposophic therapy.