The Year in Review

“Bonna builds all its business processes on sustainability and aims to minimise the negative impact on nature, achieving this with its recyclable products. The brand, which supported threatened wildlife with the Prints Collection which launched last year, continued to add new products to its recyclable and sustainable products in 2022. Bonna has managed to reduce plate consumption from 40 per cent to five/six per cent with its lifetime edge break resistance guarantee. Reducing the consumption of a sector that consumes natural resources, the brand contributes to sustainable production in every sense.

Unfortunately, the cost increase in energy resources, which effects all sectors, also effects the HoReCa sector. 2022 was a very challenging year in terms of energy and raw material costs. However, Bonna aims for continuous savings in the use of natural gas and electricity in all units in its factory, where the latest technologies are used, and raises the performance bar every day. It values waste management and ensures circularity in supply chain management. It saves 80 per cent of electricity by making adjustments to its machinery and recycles 80 per cent of waste water and reuses it in production.

With sustainable production, it is possible to produce without wasting the resources of our planet. We hope more organisations will take important steps towards sustainability in 2023 and hoping for a much better year for all sectors in every sense.”

As 2022 wraps up, it has been remarkable for many reasons. We asked the industry to sum it up for them…

Michaela Horáková, marketing director, Crystalex

“Crystalex has seen some great success in terms of promotions, full occupancy in production and our decoration on glass. Our exclusive Mucha collection has been a best seller, it’s a beautiful project.

The biggest obstacle we’ve encountered as a business in 2022 is energy prices – they have effected absolutely everything, the prices of packaging, glass, production costs, transport... it is a huge misfortune for all industries. For 2023, we don’t know what will happen with the energy market – everything will depend on that.”

“Despite the challenges of the macro environment, Denby has had much to feel positive about in 2022. Harnessing the phenomenal growth of the prior year in terms of our new audiences and the accelerated interest in ceramics and homeware, we enjoyed the hugely successful launch of Kiln, the roll out of our Made in England porcelain ranges and the continued expansion of our home décor portfolio with new vases and home fragrance collections.

In spring we were featured in the BBC One Inside the Factory programme in which Gregg Wallace showcased our handcrafting skills in the making of a Halo mug and 2022 saw us win a number of awards and accolades, being particularly proud of our Porcelain Design Award, Eco Award and ecommerce Awards. Challenging times call for additional focus on marketing and on developing great products, so with plans already in place for 2023, we are optimistic we have the tools to weather the potential uncertainty in the year ahead.”

Hayley Baddiley, global marketing director, Denby

“Our biggest success was the introduction of our Thanni collection. The Thanni pieces are simply spectacular and are as beautiful as they are practical. Our Vida collection of luxury melamine is our fastest growing collection, and melamine is a best selling category. Shipping issues seem to continue to plague us, just when we think all will be OK a new surge of Covid or port closure happens unexpectedly and comes back to haunt us. Container and transport costs have been something we also thought would level off, but it continues to be challenging. I’m eternally optimistic about the next year. Global financial growth is forecast to slow in the coming year, but total employment is expected to grow. There has been such a demand for product this year that we are working to maximum capacity at our Mexican foundry and are working hard to keep items in stock in our New Orleans warehouse. I’m not slowing down and expect growth in 2023.”

Ana Roque, president, Porcel

“Porcel’s mission is to create, produce and trade porcelain solutions with excellent customer service, with skilled and motivated staff, and the cooperation of the remaining interested parties, aiming for the sustainability of the company - we believe our greatest success is to be able to celebrate it for 35 years now. The biggest challenge we have been facing is trying to balance the drastic increases in energy costs which have been reflected with direct impact on the ceramic industry with the worldwide situation. However, 2023 will be a very exciting year for Porcel. We have been working on some new developments and techniques to create unparalleled pieces that will reach our clients early next year. As always, our goal is to innovate, bringing striking new collections to the market. We are cautiously optimist about 2023 and are eager to share these novelties this coming year!”

Tetsuya Aoyama, department of overseas business, Koransha

“For Koransha, the development of the Chinese market which we made a full-scale entry in to five years ago has been a success for this year. We were able to expand sales at high-end stores, increase awareness of the Koransha brand, and increase the number of customers.

The Pinstripe Collection which is a dinner set available in three colours – white, celadon and ruri (Cobalt blue) – is our best selling collection.

In terms of obstacles for the past year, while the new business in each country we are aiming for is progressing smoothly, we are receiving more orders than we can imagine. We were forced to review the production system for products that require manual work. In 2023, we will strive to create products that customers want with pride as a long-established manufacturer with 333 years of history. Our business beliefs never waver.

In addition, as a manufacturer, we have earned the trust of our customers, leading to business expansion that is expected to have a considerable chance of winning.”

“These are pretty tough times for the hospitality and HoReCa sector and their suppliers. We just came out of two years of practically no HoReCa business and when things finally started to get better, a new, very unpleasant uncertainty stirred the markets and as of now there is no end in sight. Thankfully, not stopped by the pandemic our bestseller is our wine glass series Vision. The success of the four key glasses of that series is impressive.

In terms of the biggest obstacle we’ve encountered as a business in 2022 – aside from the energy crises and a pretty uncertain future which makes any forecast a challenge, the logistics were a nightmare. Fortunately our head of procurement Eva worked miracles here, and I´d like to take this opportunity to thank her very much for her continuous dedication!

Who can really say what 2023 will bring? It certainly seems to be some big challenges coming, and with everybody being careful and restricting their spending, this might not go as great as we would hope for.”

Nikolan Borger, marketing manager, Zieher

Michael Eichinger, head of marketing, product and communications, Zwiesel Glas

“2022 has been a year of momentum for us. In our contract manufacturing vertical, the set-up of a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility spread over 80,000 sq. feet offering all kitchenware manufacturing requirements under one roof, has been a key milestone for us. We take special pride in the fact that tooling process is in-house and has 500+ tools with a capacity of developing 50+ in a year. Similarly in our agency distribution business catering to the India market, our biggest highlight has been the growth of our brand portfolio which now includes over 30 international brands, market leaders in their respective categories in the kitchen and home space. We now offer over 1,500 skus and 50,000 product choices, through our integrated, centrally located, single stop warehouse. With our omni-channel approach, our customer base has grown across hospitality, institutional sales, general trade, modern trade and online market verticals.

Perhaps our biggest challenge in 2022 has been the rapid escalation of input raw material prices by approximately 10 per cent to 20 per cent in the contract manufacturing business and 5x price hike in the import and freight fees has been a challenge for our contract manufacturing, as well as the agency distribution business which has made it challenging to offer the best prices to our customers.

Yet we look forward to closing this year and welcoming 2023 with vigour and optimism. We are looking at widening our customer base for the contract manufacturing vertical with the best combination of product and service offering while capitalising the rise of India as a manufacturing hub.

The IMF forecasts that India is the only large economy with a growth projection of above six per cent for both 2022 and 2023. This is exciting for us in the agency distribution business and we expect to build both pace and scale in meeting the growing demand for premium, international kitchen and homeware in the market.”

“This year we were able to record several successes at once. On the one hand, Zwiesel Glas and Fortessa further solidified their nearly 20-year cooperation and announced their merger. On the other, since April 2022, the extensive quality ranges of the Fortessa brand from the tableware and cutlery product categories and the wide range of crystal glassware series and table accessories of the Zwiesel Glas and Schott Zwiesel brands have been offered under the umbrella of the corporate brand United Tables by Zwiesel. Furthermore, in the past financial year, Zwiesel Glas reached profits of over €100 million for the first time. In addition, one should not forget that we had a successful anniversary year with numerous successful anniversary events and a unique design cooperation with Sebastian Herkner, who designed our anniversary series Journey.

This year we introduced our new series Chess (HoReCa name is Perspective) in the barware segment which was a very successful launch and sales have constantly increased. Otherwise, a constant bestseller is our Pure series with many different glass types not only for red wine, white wine, sparkling wine, but also for barware, such as long drink or whisky tumblers or even shot glasses.

Energy supply is a huge topic for us not only in 2022. The saying “no gas no glass” is very true. For the production of glass, we need a huge amount of gas. Our glass melting tanks are 365 days of the year in service and are reaching temperatures of 1,500°C until 1,600°C. Unfortunately, we cannot switch to another energy source as this would need a whole reconstruction of our manufacturing. Next year, 2023 is not only associated with opportunities, but also with challenges. Mainly due to the ongoing energy crisis, but through the merger we are in an even more stable position and can draw on even greater resources. Fortessa and Zwiesel Glas have generated a total global turnover of more than €200 million with around 900 employees. The bottom line – together, we are going in to 2023 stronger.”

Josh Rammell, marketing manager, Utopia Tableware

“We’re very proud that this year we were able to have our largest product launch since 2018, with hundreds of new skus across multiple product categories, including tableware, glassware, barware and cutlery, as well as extensions to our ecoproducts range. A key element of that success was bringing in new supply partners – this was partly due to the challenging international trade environment, so we managed to turn a problem into an advantage. The testing environment for international trade, with delays and stock shortages, proved an interesting challenge. However, it allowed us to create new opportunities, by working with new suppliers and partners, and as a result we have come out stronger.

Our new Murra collection has been a stand out success with restaurateurs and hoteliers. It features five colourways across 25 shapes, which allows enormous flexibility and creativity for HoReCa operators and being true hospitality grade quality, it’s supremely practical, too.

For glassware our new Twisted Hayworth cocktail glasses, which bring an eye-catching sense of slightly skewed glamour to the bar, have been very popular sellers. 2023 looks good for us. Obviously, there are challenges, but we believe it’s set to be a strong year for the hospitality industry, with many exciting new openings and an industry ready to grow. In fact, our 2023 products launch will be our biggest since 2010!”