About us

BYK Additives & Instruments is a leading supplier of additives for coatings, inks, plastics, adhesives, sealants and paper surfaces as well as instruments for the objective assessment of color, appearance and physical properties of coatings, plastics, and paper surfaces.
Over a period of many decades, BYK has repeatedly introduced innovative products to the market, opening up new perspectives for the effectiveness and potential uses of additives and instruments.

Every year, BYK invests 8% of its turnover in research and development – a figure that is thrice as high as the industry standard.
One in five BYK staff works in interdisciplinary teams dedicated to furthering new developments and leveraging staff competence from the various specialty fields. BYK rewards excellence in development work (annually) with its internal “BYK Advance” innovation prize.

BYK places great importance on being close to its customers and remaining in constant dialog with them. This is one of the reasons why the company is represented in more than 100 countries and regions around the globe.
In eleven technical service laboratories, BYK offers customers and application engineers support for concrete questions. At its locations in Wesel, Deventer or in Asia, the USA and Brazil, BYK develops solutions for various application sectors. And BYK makes its experience internationally available in the form of customer seminars at which some 1,100 participants from around the world are informed and trained each year.

As one of the four divisions within the ALTANA Group, BYK Additives & Instruments employs around 1,200 staff worldwide, more than 600 of them in Wesel. In 2008, company turnover amounted to EUR 450 million. Some 86% of that turnover was earned abroad, especially in neighboring European countries, the USA and the Asian market.