STOCK PLZEŇ-BOŽKOV (STOCK PLZEŇ) IS THE MARKET LEADER IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC WHERE WE HAVE BEEN PRODUCING THE FINEST TRADITIONAL SPIRITS AND BITTERS FOR MORE THAN 85 YEARS.
Our wide range of products includes many well-known and well-loved brands, most notably Fernet Stock, the country's most popular spirit.
In addition to our growing range of Fernet products, Stock Plzeň offers many other brands, including our famous Amundsen vodka, Božkov Tuzemský rum and Stock slivovices.
With a portfolio of more than 40 products, Stock Plzeň leads the market in terms of spirits consumed. Our position reflects our ability to nurture our long-standing successful brands while refreshing our portfolio with new market-inspired, innovative products such as Fernet Stock Citrus, which was designed to appeal to female consumers.
Stock Plzeň supports and actively promotes responsible drinking.
Find out more about our responsible drinking programmes.
History
The history of Stock Plzeň starts in the Italian port of Trieste, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
It was there that, in 1884, Lionello Stock formed the Camis & Stock company. The flagship product was its cognac which, with a popularity and quality that allowed it to bear the label 'medicinal', competed head on with the French. Such was their success that Camis & Stock became established as one of the largest companies of its kind in Europe in the 1920s.
After the end of the First World War, however, the Italian liquor factory's formerly domestic markets became foreign markets, and its exports struggled with customs, quotas and other barriers. So Lionello Stock decided to form affiliates in the individual countries that had arisen in the wake of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.
In 1920, Stock bought an existing distillery in Božkov and formed a subsidiary called Stock Cognac Medicinal. At first, the products were transported from Trieste to Božkov and merely bottled there. At the time, the company employed approximately 15 manual workers, four clerks, a procurist and a director. Shipments from Trieste gradually came to an end and the plant began operating independently. The business activities of Stock Cognac Medicinal H. Planner Božkov u Plzně grew rapidly and thanks to the high quality of its products the company enjoyed ever-increasing numbers of consumers.
But life was not easy for Lionello Stock's Plzeň distillery. Although the firm posted great results in 1929, it was fully hit by the economic crisis sweeping the World in the 1930s. Then, in 1939 it was seized by the Nazis as Jewish property before passing into national administration after the War. In 1947, it was briefly returned to its Italian owner. Briefly indeed, for the Božkov plant was nationalised in 1948, as were most companies in Czechoslovakia. As part of a state-owned company, the profits from the production of quality spirits were used to subsidise other, less lucrative production. As a result, the company could not invest in any expansions and Fernet Stock, whose popularity increased sharply in the sixties and especially in the seventies, was in short supply until the 1990s.
After the revolution, the Božkov plant became an independent public limited company and began investing its entire profit in production, thus managing to greatly increase the production of the Fernet Stock. Today, Stock Plzeň is the largest spirits producer on the Czech market, holding an approximately 34% share.
In 1993, the distillery's original owner Stock Trieste became its majority shareholder. Two years later the company became part of the Eckes group, the largest spirits and fruit juice producer in Europe.
Stock Plzeň experienced turbulent times throughout the 1990s however, it become the number one Czech company in the volume of spirits sold, and was able to offer its customers entirely new products that instantly won unprecedented popularity. In 1997, Stock Plzeň launched Fernet Stock Citrus, which within two years became the second most popular Czech alcoholic drink, Fernet Stock being number one. Other exceptionally successful new products have emerged, such as Magister, Vodka Amundsen and its various low-alcohol flavours, and Slivovice Stock from the legendary Prádlo distillery near the town of Nepomuk. Practically every year several new brands are added to the company's portfolio, Stock Plzeň thereby responding to the latest market trends.
Most recently, in late 2007, Stock Plzeň was acquired by Oaktree Capital Management and consolidated into the international business that the wider Stock Spirits Group is today.