Better living by design Brabantia

BETTER LIVING BY DESIGN

Brabantia is a European market leader in the design and manufacture of a wide range of stylish houseware products. Philip Yorke talked to Christa Alders, the company’s sales director and head of sales for BELUX, about its new corporate style and latest collection of designer products.

Brabantia is a privately owned Dutch company that was established under the name Van Elderen & Co. and is an iconic household brand throughout Europe. It was founded in Aalst in the Netherlands in 1919 and initially the company specialised in sheet metal fabrication. The name Brabantia is derived from the province of North Brabant and was an early Van Elderen trading name.

Brabantia offers a wide range of more than 500 homeware products in 4 distinct categories: waste storage, food enjoyment (food preparation & storage), laundry care (ironing & drying) and bathroom accessories. Today the company has four production units employing over 1000 people across 90 countries and has an annual turnover of more than €100 million.

Inspired design

This year Brabantia announced the global launch of its ‘Designed for living’ programme in order to achieve its transformation into an inspiring interior design brand. Since its foundation the company has been committed to producing elegant and stylish houseware products but now it has decided to build upon this reputation with the introduction of the next generation of innovative designer products.

Supporting this evolution into a major interior design brand, consumers can expect an entirely new look and feel with a fresh, redesigned logo, attractive lifestyle photography, contemporary colour-palettes and carefully considered detail.

Christa Alders, Brabantia’s sales director, said, “We appointed Tijn Van Elderen as our new CEO in 2014 and so a new strategy was born to re-invent the company to be more interior-design led and to partner with some of the biggest names in the interior design business. We therefore embarked on the design of a new logo, new products and new packaging. The re-launch also helped to market our brand as an impulse buy that offered not only tasteful design but also durability and sustainability.

“We have four distinct product categories and have stepped away from some products, such as letterboxes, which are now produced by third parties. Our fastest growing segment is laundry care where we see strong demand for our new rotary dryers. We are also planting a tree for every rotary dryer purchased to enhance our sustainability programme. Furthermore, we are helping our consumers with their waste solutions and have some exciting new products that were launched at the Ambiente Frankfurt Trade Show in February this year (2016).”

Alders added, “We operate four main production facilities, two of which are based here in Belgium with another in China, located close to Hong Kong, and another in Latvia, where our rotary dryers and ironing boards are manufactured. Our main markets remain western Europe; however, as a global player we have an international network of exclusive distributors, which means that there is only one approved distributor in each country. We are increasing our presence in the US as well as in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

“We are constantly designing unique, innovative products; we communicate with our end users and are a very consumer driven company. We also offer our retailers a constant stream of value- added promotions and in-store display and merchandising material which is delivered and installed by our sales teams and fully trained distributors. As a family-owned company, we tend to see our customers as part of our extended family, which in turn means that we always do our best to look after their interests and their profitability.”

CEO Van Elderen commented, “Our aim is to enrich the quality of life for our customers with beautiful interior-designed products that make daily chores a pleasure. Our transformation to a global interior design brand was the next logical step for us, helping us to inspire and delight our customers. ‘Designed for living’ is an amazing opportunity to really make a difference.”

Retro-inspired

As part of its commitment to bringing trend setting interior designs to its consumers, Brabantia has partnered with the ‘Queen of Prints’, the famous Irish Designer Orla Kiely. Well known for her retro-inspired lifestyle collections, which includes everything from ready-to-wear clothes to furniture, Kiely has teamed up with Brabantia to design a print for its latest designer waste bin. As a result, her world-famous stem design has now taken root on Brabantia’s iconic retro bin. The spring and leaf motif is available in cream on charcoal with an orange lid, and charcoal on cream with a yellow lid.

Orla said, “Brabantia is a company that I have admired for many years. Their products are of a high quality and very functional. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate with them. We have added some fun to an object that we use every day. I would be very happy to have one of the bins in my own kitchen at home.”

The retro bin is much more than a pretty design: it is smart both inside and out. Open the lid with a light tap on the pedal and watch it close smoothly and silently. It’s quiet and easy to use and you don’t need to touch the lid to open the bin. It also comes with a 10-year guarantee. n

For further information about Brabantia’s innovative interior design products and services visit: www.brabantia.com