The origins of the company date back to 1879, when the druggist and businessman Carl Roth founded a material, colonial, colored goods store and drugstore in Karlsruhe . [1] 1891, the drugstore Carl Roth received the title and the privilege of the Grand Duchy of Baden purveyors .
In 1928, the company expanded the drugstore business with a department for laboratory chemicals. In 1945, a powerful manufacturing and filling department was added. In 1965, the chemicals department moved to the newly built company in Schoemperlenstrasse. In December 1969, Carl Roth gave up the drugstore, ending a 90-year tradition.
The wholesale business Carl Roth was continued in Schoemperlenstraße. In 1993, a new high-bay warehouse was built there for the laboratory supply range. In 1996, a new dispatch warehouse was built. After the extension of a modern office building in 2001, the space requirement of the growing company exceeded the existing premises. In 2003, the company acquired land in the Karlsruhe-Rheinhafen industrial area and built a second plant. Since 2005, production, storage and dispatch of laboratory chemicals has been located at the Rheinhafen site . In June 2013, the chemical storage facility in the Rhine port was increased by around 50% to 8,000 square meters.