Stiftung Warentest: In the secret laboratory of the product testers - "It's not for children's eyes: a torture chamber"
Created: 04/06/2022, 10:36 am
By: Cornelia Schramm
On a flying visit to the secret laboratory: Holger Brackemann, head of the investigations department at Stiftung Warentest, examines a city bike during the brake test.
© Stiftung Warentest
They rip off Barbie's heads or make dishwashers smoke.
Everything in the service of safety.
The inspectors from Stiftung Warentest put everything through its paces.
Munich - "This is definitely not for children's eyes," says Holger Brackemann and opens the door to the laboratory.
Colorful children's rattles, cuddly toys and toy cars are on the shelves.
In one corner is a glass case with a gas connection and smoke outlet, in the other a mechanical projectile.
An examination table stands in the middle of the room – on it a doll, completely naked.
Her head has been severed, her blond hair plucked out, an eye clawed out, her dress and torso torn to pieces.
"A real torture chamber," jokes Brackemann.
Stiftung Warentest: Tracking down harmful substances in German products
The 60-year-old has been in charge of the investigations department at Stiftung Warentest* for 20 years.
He sees dolls like this no longer just as toys, but as test objects.
How easy does it burn?
Do pollutants escape?
Could children choke on their individual parts or could certain ingredients be harmful if they sucked on them?
"The doll could contain heavy metals, short-chain chlorinated paraffins or other substances.
That's why we always check each component individually in different tests," says the doctor of chemistry.
Berliners have a special relationship with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH*), for example.
"They motivate me," he says.
"Years ago, Stiftung Warentest was the first to start testing materials for these plasticizers." It was known that certain compounds are even carcinogenic.
"The majority of handles with grip* - from tools to vacuum cleaners to toys - contained PAHs at the time," says Brackemann.
When Stiftung Warentest discovered it in a discounter's hammer set, they took it off the market.
Nothing for children's eyes: Stiftung Warentest dismantles dolls into their individual parts for the pollutant test.
© Stiftung Warentest
"The result went around the world, and the EU regulated its use by law," says the tester.
"That makes you proud as a scientist." The feeling of being at least a little bit of a do-gooder grew when toys were also taken off the market because of PAH.
He likes to give good grades.
"But tracking down critical issues is more exciting."
Stiftung Warentest: Buyers procure test products “undercover” across the country
As the “senior tester”, Brackemann is no longer in the laboratory himself.
Also because the Stiftung Warentest does not have its own, but commissions independent laboratories and testing institutes throughout Germany to test the products they have selected.
There are around 25,000 per year.
Today, Brackemann is in a testing institute somewhere in Franconia to get a taste of the laboratory and look over the shoulders of testers.
Their names and employer must remain strictly confidential.
Manufacturers who have their goods tested here should not know that the foundation also has them tested here.
The foundation is repeatedly sued - this is how the nation's testers really work:
The most important facts about Stiftung Warentest at a glance:
Neutrality is the top priority of Stiftung Warentest. But how does she stay independent?
According to the statute, it is not allowed to earn any income from advertising.
Founded in 1964 by the Bundestag, Stiftung Warentest wants to remain free from the influence of manufacturers and service providers.
How is Stiftung Warentest financed?
Because the foundation is not allowed to generate any advertising revenue, it receives an annual compensation payment from the state.
However, this accounts for only 3.4 percent of the almost 62 million euros in revenue (as of 2020).
The foundation finances itself largely through the publication of its test results, i.e. through the sale of its books, magazines and the website, which is subject to a fee.
The first issue was published in 1966 for 1.50 marks.
Today, “test” costs 6.90 euros.
8.7 percent of the revenue is generated by "brand licenses" - manufacturers have to pay to use the seals.
How are tests performed?
Up to three institutes are usually involved in a study.
The products, which the foundation has tested in around 100 independent institutes according to scientific methods, are purchased anonymously from retailers beforehand.
In addition to around 25,000 products a year, the foundation also secretly tests banks and insurance companies.
How is it decided what to test?
Stiftung Warentest has carried out over 100,000 test comparisons since 1964.
Since then, the topics have arisen on the one hand through suggestions from the Board of Trustees, the providers, the consumer centers and the testing institutes.
On the other hand, users of the website and readers provide suggestions as well as their own employees.
“We mostly test products for the general public.
Niche products such as wine refrigerators tend not to – but you never know,” says Holger Brackemann, who heads the investigations department.
How is it graded?
The Stiftung Warentest awards grades from "very good" to "poor".
This overall grade is made up of the individually tested properties.
In the case of household appliances, these include function, handling, durability, electricity and water consumption, noise pollution and safety.
The foundation often has higher requirements than the law allows.
The foundation can rate products as "poor" even though they meet the legal requirements.
What are the consequences?
The trade often quickly lists poorly tested products, according to tester Brackemann.
"But we also regularly receive letters from lawyers and warnings," he says.
A few end up in court.
"We are currently arguing with a mattress, a smoke detector and a blanket manufacturer."
Which tests made the biggest waves in the media?
Uschi Glas entered the cosmetics business in 2001.
Your cream "Hautnah" would cause pimples, was the test verdict.
A court agreed with the testers in 2006.
Things were different in 2014: Ritter Sport won in court after Warentest rated its chocolate as “poor” because of an allegedly chemically produced flavoring.
"In 2006 we were publicly criticized," says Brackemann.
“We found deficiencies in four World Cup stadiums.
We were concerned with safety - others thought we wanted to make football mad for the nation."
The testers want to work independently.
"We employ nine buyers across the country," says Brackemann.
"Our employees often have a hard time: they have to buy around 30 to 40 yoghurts of the same brand and variety and make sure that they have the same best-before date." In addition, in order to remain "undercover", they should better pay in cash.
“Imagine if we wanted to test sunflower oil* again at the moment!” he says and laughs.
Simply order samples from the manufacturers?
Impossible because manipulation can never be ruled out.
"Detergents, for example, could be improved quickly with a higher enzyme content." But the product that everyone buys in the supermarket is supposed to be tested.
And so the buyers drive to various supermarkets in various regions and only buy packs that have the same filling quantity, batch number and the same best-before date.
Toys put to the test: test criteria as strict as those for food and medicines
Back to the lab.
Today, Brackemann is allowed to assist briefly in the "toy torture chamber" during the "pull test".
The button eye of a plush moose, which is approved for children under three, must not tear off even when a force of 90 newtons is pulled on it.
The seams also hold up - the moose passes the test.
A toy car with an electric drive falls through.
The testers simulated a short circuit.
Now the body is bent.
"It just doesn't get that hot in the children's room," says an employee who had previously noticed "high-frequency interference emissions".
"In the worst case, it can also interfere with Grandpa's pacemaker."
Safety in the children's room: The test criteria for toys are as strict as for food and medicines.
© Stiftung Warentest
On the site of the testing institute, which is eight football pitches in size, there is an adventure playground for engineers, physicists and chemists behind every door.
There are halls in which they can play the weather gods and expose products to rain, ice and heat during the "climate change test" and even tweak the humidity.
Canned asparagus, gyros sticks and toy weapons: Stiftung Warentest has also tested a lot of bizarre things
The
Stiftung Warentest should act as
the "consumer advocate" , said Federal Minister of
Economics Kurt Schmücker
in 1964 when the neutral testing institution was founded.
Sewing machines and hand mixers were the first products tested.
Household appliances are still regularly tested to this day* - but the
history of Stiftung Warentest
shows that things can be far more bizarre.
A look back at the colorful range of products not only reveals the consumer preferences of the Germans, but is also a mirror of society.
In 1969, Stiftung Warentest tested
hostesses schools
.
Three years earlier, Stiftung Warentest
had already faced severe criticism after the first
"test" edition .
The magazine was "brought up with sex", it was said in the Bundestag at the time, because two women posed on the cover with the tested devices.
By 1970, the sexual revolution was already well under way that
naturist vacations
could also be tested.
The increasing prosperity of society can be seen in the many test products that followed: canned asparagus,
support stockings and bed warmers (1971)
, outboard motors (1972), film splicers (1973),
hand knitting machines and trouser corsets (1974)
, shoe shine machines (1975), telephone cord reels
and PVC bathing boats (1977), toy guns and boarding houses (1978), and
inflatable sleds (1979)
were tested.
In the 1980s, among other things, hygiene in indoor swimming pools (1981),
electric table organs (1983)
, bracket attachments for hair dryers (1984), aquarium lights and detective agencies (1985),
soccer stadiums in Mexico (1986)
, backgammon computers (1987),
Educational books and dating agencies (1988)
as well as grave care offers (1989) on the test bench.
In the 1990s,
tabletop gyros (1990)
, gambling, and pleasure-
enhancing sex tonics (1992)
were tested.
In 1989, Stiftung Warentest actually wanted to test respirator masks once and never again - until 2020 came and the population began to worry about their quality again when the pandemic broke out.
As the nation's testers, they probably just felt it was their duty again.
Furniture inspectors in particular must not be sensitive to noise.
It scrapes, rumbles and creaks constantly.
Eight machines work around the clock on eight office chairs – always in different ways.
One presses the armrests up and down, the other simulates “nervous wobbling”, and yet others test extreme weight shifts.
In two test benches, wooden pressure stamps move over the seat at varied angles.
“After all, everyone sits down differently,” explains one employee.
“These two chairs have been in the test stands for two and a half months.
They still have two weeks ahead of them.” The machine raises and lowers the wooden stamp, which the employees call “Euroarsch”, a total of 500,000 times.
It corresponds exactly to the norm of the buttocks of a European.
Bicycles, e-bikes, cargo bikes: whatever is popular with consumers is tested
After visits to test pans, mattresses, dishwashers and ballpoint pens, there is one last laboratory on Brackemann's list: that of bicycle testers.
"I don't own a car, maybe that's why I'm so interested in the wheels," he says, inspecting the test benches.
Like the chairs before, bikes are tested here as a whole, but also disassembled into their individual parts.
For six hours, an e-bike with a 150-kilo weight rumbles 480,000 times over two uneven steel rollers.
"Five years of downhill driving," translates one employee.
This test bench simulates five years of riding downhill – the bike rumbles over the steel rollers for hours.
© Stiftung Warentest
Elsewhere, people brake thousands of times.
The testers apply spray mist to the tires via nozzles – and thus test the brakes in the wet.
"Such special constructions cost up to 100,000 euros," says Brackemann, examining a bicycle frame that broke at the weld.
Destroying things to make Germany a little safer – there's nothing nicer for the nation's testers.
"It's a dream job," he says, smiling.
(sco)