SHERIDAN, WYOMING – November 1, 2025 – Germany’s DIY and home improvement sector has selected Klaus Meffert, longtime head of Meffert Farbwerke AG, as recipient of the 2025 DIY-Lifetime-Award, honoring four decades of expansion, market internationalization, and active association work that helped position a regional paint maker as a European supplier to the building, renovation, and home improvement trade. The award will be presented during the BHB Congress, underscoring how closely the German-speaking DIY ecosystem links entrepreneurial continuity with sector-wide modernization.
Four decades of growth in architectural coatings
When Meffert took over the company’s management in 1985, he pursued a deliberately broad agenda: industrial modernization, extension of the paint and coatings portfolio, and a sales organization capable of serving not only specialist wholesalers but also the rapidly professionalizing DIY retail channel. The effect was to move Meffert AG from a regionally anchored family business into the group of paint manufacturers able to supply large-format home improvement stores in Germany, Austria, and neighboring markets. That strategic consistency is the core reason for this year’s award.
Leveraging reunification and Eastern European markets
A decisive growth impulse came after German reunification. Meffert used the window to establish production and sales locations in eastern Germany and, in the years that followed, to push into Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Romania. This eastward expansion doubled revenues within a short time and gave DIY chains a supplier with manufacturing sites close to their growth markets. In a sector where transport costs, tinting precision, and shelf-ready packaging are margin-critical, this networked footprint became a competitive asset.
Scale through targeted acquisitions and brand breadth
From the 2000s onward, Meffert AG pursued a clear buy-and-build strategy, integrating well-known brands and plants such as Dinova, Tex-Color, Albrecht, Pronova, Casati, and Bio Pin. That sequence of acquisitions did three things at once: it diversified the assortment for building professionals and DIY consumers, it created a broader international platform—including business in China for “Made in Germany” products—and it gave purchasing groups and home improvement retailers a single, reliable coatings partner able to supply several price and quality tiers. For a consolidating DIY market, this is exactly the supplier structure buyers look for.
Association advocacy and sector visibility
The award jury also emphasized Meffert’s long-standing engagement as president of the German paint and printing ink industry association, where he argued for fair competition and stronger international visibility of German coatings producers. That work aligned supplier interests with those of DIY retailers, which depend on reliable, regulation-compliant, and innovative product flows for their paint aisles. As the organizers stated: “The DIY-Lifetime-Award goes this year to Klaus Meffert, the Chairman of the Board of Meffert Farbwerke AG.” Placing him alongside previous awardees from Hornbach, Obi, Gardena and other sector builders signals how central professional coatings supply has become to DIY formats.
Strategic relevance for retailers, purchasing groups, and suppliers
For home improvement chains, purchasing cooperatives, and construction material dealers, the 2025 choice highlights three strategic priorities:
- long-term investment capability through family-owned structures,
- European and international production capacity to support growth markets,
- and constructive participation in industry associations to shape regulation and sustainability frameworks.
With more than 1,400 employees and annual sales above €375 million, Meffert AG represents the supplier archetype the DIY sector wants to keep in its ecosystem: innovative, financially solid, and internationally connected.
Learn more and follow the congress coverage
The award will be handed over during the BHB Congress, where digitalization, sustainability, and retail modernization will be discussed in parallel to supplier strategy. fairsonline.org will continue to follow congress outcomes, especially where they touch procurement, packaging, and international sourcing in the DIY and building products channel.