Ille Trousseaus was founded in 1965 by husband and wife team Helmtraud Blatz (née Ille) and Wilhelm Blatz in Hanau, Germany, when the couple was not married yet. Later on, they renamed the business Ille Professional/ Automatic Towel Dispenser Service, renting out dispensers for cloth rolls to caterers and public facilities. In the period from 1987 to 2009 the successful couple entered a partnership on shareholder level with Haniel and founded the Ille Paper Service GmbH, which focused on the distribution of electronic/ automatic paper towel dispensers. The strongly improved capital structure supported Ille's rapid growth. However, in 2009 Helmtraud and Wilhem Blatz were in the position to buy-out all shares from their former partner, handing them over to their daughters Marion Gottschalk and Christiane Blatz. Since then, Ille is once again a 100% family-owned company.

Founded as a specialist for linen & trousseaus, Ille developed successively into a professional towel dispenser service company for caterers and the public need. In 1987, and in partnership with Haniel, Ille initially focused on the distribution of our large toilet paper dispenser, Big Willy. In 1992 a large paper towel dispenser was also launched, enabling Ille for the first time to offer the full washroom range. However, most essential for our continued success was our company-developed electronic paper towel dispenser Paper Jack in 1998. It was the first paper towel dispenser of its kind, where a contact-less sampling of the paper is possible. Moreover, since its introduction in 2005 Ille's Paper Jack is also one of the success factors for Sanifair's concept of Tank & Rast (Chain of service areas alongside of the motorways in Germany). Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that the launch of our Hotel Collection in 2006 was another little triumph. Altogether some very good reasons, why Ille is highly popular in the industry for both their pioneering products and their excellent service. Accordingly, our new developments are generally enthusiastically received, be it the cutting-edge dispenser line Clean Attack with its hygiene products for washrooms and even kitchens or our modern Black Line dispensers.

It all started in the Ruhr area. But bit by bit, Ille established branch offices and service & logistics centers all over Europe in addition to our headquarters in Hessen, Germany. Today, there are 12 branch offices in Germany alone. In 1994, the first foreign subsidiary was founded in Prague. Today it supplies Czech customers with further four branches. In 1998, a former customer in the Netherlands could be taken over, and today Ille is represented there with two further branches. In the same year, 1998, Ille Austria - with four branches - was founded. In 2000, Ille Slovakia emerged from Ille Czech Republic, and operates today from three different locations. In 2004 we could also take over a customer in Ireland. Today Ille can be found at four locations on the green island. Two years later, in 2006, Ille UK was founded.

Ille was founded by Wilhelm Blatz in 1965 in a teen bedroom in his parent's house. But, newly married, he and his wife Helmtraud moved swiftly on, and that literally, using the basement of their new semi-detached house for stocking their goods, and their living room as an office. A little while later Ille's business took off, and with the support of the Roßdorf community we were able to rent the unused local village school to keep our stock. But it was in 1972, when we finally built our first representative company building right next to the communal swimming pool, that not only offered office space for 14 employees but also had a proper warehouse. The building in Roßdorf housed us for about 20 years. In 1995 Ille moved to Altenstadt (Hessen) and into a modern building whose offices and warehouse reflected our company's increasing size and needs. We and our employees feel very comfortable here, hence our decision to invest in this location. A new administration & logistics centre was planned, and its construction started in 2013. The logistics center could be moved into in October 2014, the administration building in March 2015. Just in time for Ille's big 50th anniversary.