The Munich-based media service provider StockFood GmbH is given a new company name by Sep.1st, 2019: StockFood becomes Image Professionals. The company, which originally focused on food photography, has continuously expanded its scope of business in recent years and is now emerging with a new company name. Image Professionals will bring together all of the company’s specialized agencies and services. However, only the company is being renamed. StockFood, the food photo agency, will remain unaffected.
The previous name originated from the beginnings of the company and limited the company too strictly to food photography, as Managing Director Martin Skultety emphasizes: “The name StockFood is a clear commitment to food and will continue to shape our world-famous food image agency in the future. However, our agency portfolio has become much more comprehensive over the years and has grown far beyond food. With Image Professionals, we will be able to unite all our offerings under one roof.”
StockFood started as a food image agency in Germany forty years ago. What followed was a unique success story in the German image agency industry. Today, the agency is regarded as the world’s only brand for professional food photography. It is also the only global market leader among the German photo agencies. In 2016 Hubert Burda Media acquired the company.
Managing Director Martin Skultety explains the background: “The renaming was not an easy decision to take, but it is ultimately a logical step. As the name of our company, StockFood had increasingly caused dilution and confusion. Thanks to the renaming, the agency StockFood will now be able to focus fully on its core subject matter again. At the same time, the new company name will allow Image Professionals to develop independently into the future.”
Image Professionals runs highly specialized non-food agencies such as living4media, seasons.agency, Friedrich Strauss and lookphotos. The Munich based company also licenses exclusive products of the renowned French food image agency Photocuisine and the UK’s Science Photo Library in certain markets. Each of the agency brands will be maintained. In the future they will operate under the corporate roof of Image Professionals GmbH. The new website www.imageprofessionals.com provides an overview of all business areas of Image Professionals GmbH.
In the last three years, the number of agencies belonging to Image Professionals has doubled. Will the rapid portfolio growth continue at Image Professionals? Managing director Skultety replies with a wink: “There are no further news as of today. But no promises that it will stay that way”.
The change to Image Professionals GmbH is merely a company name change. All licenses, contracts and company registrations will remain in full force and effect.
