What is "vorwerk"

Vorwerk may refer to:

• Vorwerk, Lower Saxony, a municipality in the Rotenburg district, Lower Saxony
• a locality of Altenmedingen, in the Uelzen district, Lower Saxony
• a subdivision of Celle, Lower Saxony
• a Vorwerk, a serfdom-based agricultural outpost of a manor estate, namegiving for the above-mentioned toponyms
• Vorwerk (company), a German company which produces vacuum cleaners
• Vorwerk (chicken), a German breed of chicken

Vorwerk is an international diversified corporate group headquartered in Wuppertal, Germany. The main business is the direct distribution of various products like household appliances (e.g. vacuum cleaners), fitted kitchens or cosmetics. Vorwerk was founded in 1883.

The family enterprise, which is operated as a limited partnership, has 12,000 full-time employees and over 590,000 self-employed sales representatives in over 70 countries worldwide (as of 2014). The largest proportion of sales representatives (546.000) work for the US-based subsidiary JAFRA Cosmetics. For the year 2014, the company posted revenues of 2.8 billion Euro.