Company History

The Getz Group

Founded in 1852 by Joseph and Max Getz, having settled in Northern California after emigrating from Eastern Europe, The Getz Group began as a local general store to service the community.

The two brothers' entrepreneurial spirit and foresight resulted in the business expanding rapidly and just in a few years they became renowned wholesalers across the United States. More impressively, by the 1870s, the brothers further expanded their business by initiating international trade to Asian markets.

Joseph and Max's success did not only come from their forward thinking and insight, but from their reputation as honest, ethical and law abiding businessmen. Today, these very values remain at the core of The Getz Group.

1850 – 1900

Getz Bros. & Co. - America's largest non-commodity international marketing and services company - traces its beginnings to 1850s and a place called Lower Lake, California, a frontier area one hundred miles north of San Francisco. Joseph and Max Getz, two Prussian brothers, opened a general store there that served farmers in the area, selling dry goods and groceries.

By the early 1870s, Getz Bros. was exporting food products to customers in Asia, which later led to the opening of the first Getz overseas office in Shanghai. The company did well shipping foodstuff to China, and soon extending beyond Shanghai into North-Eastern regions, a populous region with an appetite for the cheese, oils, and meat products that Getz exported.

1900 – 1990

World War I came the opportunity for the firm to greatly increase its penetration in Mainland China, as British and other European traders exited the market. Getz Bros. opened its second branch office in Hong Kong to serve South China, with an expanded selection of American-produced hardware, housewares, and packaged goods, in addition to its established line of food products.

Having been operating in Hong Kong and Mainland China markets for nearly a century under two separate entities (Getz Bros. Inc. and Muller and Phipps), the Hong Kong operation was incorporated locally in 1978, by merging its Consumer trading unit with its Industrial products and service operation.

In 1981, Getz's parent company - Trans Union Corp. became a member of the Marmon Group Inc., which was an international association of more than 100 autonomous manufacturing and service companies with total sales of over US$6 billion. Getz Bros. took advantage of its incomparable knowledge of the Far East and became the leader in the Pacific Rim trade.

Working with Getz enables international manufacturers to move into markets that they would not feel confident entering by themselves. Getz Bros. has an infrastructure - warehouses, trucks, and equipment - that enables it to effectively market and distribute products in overseas locations, bringing down the cost of distribution channel for each manufacturer.

1990 – Present

Over the years, The Group has continued to grow through mergers and acquisitions and the development of new ventures with our business partners.

Today, The Getz Group of companies has its core operations in the Asia Pacific region from where we provide products and services to our valued business partners in over 90 countries across 6 continents, utilizing our 220+ facilities that comply with all major international standards while employing more than 21,500 people worldwide and executing millions of transactions every month.

Getz Hong Kong is an ideal partner for companies which look for continuous growth, positive solutions, proactive actions, value creations and long term collaboration. We are well-positioned to help multi-national companies and small medium enterprises to penetrate the markets of Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China.