Accurate weighing since the 19th century

The year is 1894, Coca-Cola has just sold its first bottled coke and motion picture films are invented. In Augsburg, Germany, blacksmith, Ludwig Pfister, establishes The Ludwig Pfister Weighing Company. Its headquarters have remained in the beautiful region of Bavaria, in southern Germany. However, Ludwig Pfister surely could not have envisaged that his company would grow to become the worldwide success it is today.

The Ludwig Pfister Weighing Company’s first products were scales for industrial and agricultural applications – and in many ways their focus hasn’t changed. 125 years later, weighing technologies continue to be the cornerstone of the business. But, given the many exciting developments that have been achieved over the years, weighing technology looks very different today.

Continuous industrial weighing technology

Though Ludwig’s business continued to grow throughout the first half of the 20th century, the most significant developments came from the 1960s onwards. In 1964, Pfister began developing continuous industrial weighing technology. This combination of a direct extraction system with conveyor weighfeeders marked the start of a new phase for Pfister. The success of later innovations – including the rotor weighfeeder – can all be attributed to this original concept.

Going digital

The next major development was the introduction of the first digital scale in 1970. This was the origin of the fully electronic PFISTER scale, marking the beginning of another phase of development for the company.


By the end of that decade, the first processor-controlled PFISTER scale was developed. In the years since, digital technology has revolutionised manufacturing processes. Today’s smart scales would be almost unrecognisable to Ludwig Pfister, but his determination to deliver precise and reliable weighing technology remains at the heart of every design.

The rotor weighfeeder

Perhaps PFISTER’s greatest success to date is the development in 1984 of the rotor weighfeeder. What began as a solution for dosing coal dust has expanded to multiple fuels and raw materials across a range of processes and industries.

Global presence, local service

Now, as part of the FLSmidth Group, Pfister continues to serve customers all over the world - not just with the experience and know-how of Pfister’s engineers but also the expertise and global presence of the wider group Cement specialists.

"Through ownership changes, geopolitical challenges and the many developments within the industries in which we work, our commitment to creating robust and reliable machinery has been unwavering” says Francesco Ferrandico, Head of Products at FLSmidth, and he continues: