Exciting New Products in the Pipeline

This week Em, Jeanne and I had to spend two long and arduous days in London, at Exclusively Housewares. This is a trade exhibition held in the Business Design Centre in Camden.

In the course of doing this, we wore our fingers to the bone, talking with large numbers of friends in the trade, consuming delicious lunches provided by my next door neighbour, the Good Eating Company. And we did all this, of course, purely to bring you the latest and best in cookware appliances and design. The venue is like a small, cosy Earls Court (exhibition centre) and is just the right size for a two day show like this. Having, I hope, thus begun the process of making you feel suitably indebted to your intrepid trio, I will now attempt to describe the trials, tribulations and sacrifices that we had to go through to bring you this news.

Jeanne & Em having far too much fun on the Le Creuset Stand!

Staub’s new Citron cast iron cookware

One of the first stands we came to was Zwilling and, amongst quite a number of new developments, Matthew showed us Staub’s new Citron coloured cast iron cookware (Staub is a French cast iron manufacturer, not unlike Le Creuset). They do some good pieces, and their glaze is really quite superb.  So, you may well begin to see these pieces in the shops and on the website in the next few weeks.

Next, down that corridor were Le Creuset, where the ever charming, handsome and tall (6’6”ish?) George Mann, our account manager, showed us the new glossy white colour from this renowned French manufacturer, along with an utterly tasteless display of all the different lid knobs that they now do…the low point being a knob that, apparently, represents Mickey Mouse.

A very tall man, with a very small pan!

A bit Mickey Mouse!

Even John Grayson, his boss seemed quite taken with them, and I’d previously thought he was quite a serious man.

But I will confide in you, that John also drives a BMW X5….oh dear.  

However, since he was kind enough to give me a lift in it a short while ago, I refrained from commenting at the time. And it’s probably best that I say no more because I heard it said that these X5 owners can be a little sensitive about their taste in cars…. or the lack of it. And indeed, his X5 was nice and quiet to travel in, and didn’t require a battery to help it along, unlike my friend Nick’s one…poor Nick.

And actually, whilst talking of Nick he’s kindly offered to take my place one of these weeks and write this newsletter in my stead, to enable me to go on holiday. An offer, that I hope you understand I’ve accepted with some glee. And this morning I got his first draft. Well as you might expect, it will need some work (not unlike the BMW X5), but it’s really not a bad first effort.

Anyway, back to Le Creuset and moving on from their tasteless knobs, George then showed us a number of other new lines and offers that they have in the pipeline. In the picture he is holding a small 22cm shallow Casserole (a special one off – smaller than their others, ideal for cooking for two and presenting it in style) and the sight of this giant fella holding a tiny pan I thought would make a good picture…well, it didn’t really work out like that…apparently I should have taken it from a lower angle to get the right effect.

Be that as it may, the time had come to move on and we turned our attention to Robert Welch, who were diagonally opposite the Le Creuset stand.  

New Robert Welch salt and pepper mills.

They had the most gorgeous new salt and pepper mills that I’ve seen in a long time. Fashioned in stainless steel, the designs were subtle, beautifully proportioned, and in short, exquisite. They are well-engineered, with Danish CrushGrind mechanisms, one of the best on the market. Two other ranges caught my eye, on their stand.

Firstly, their quite extensive line up of kitchen tools, which you buy either on a very elegant stand or individually, and secondly their new ish Professional Knife range, with ice hardened blades. Good to look at, very comfortable in my hand, and heavier than their Signature range (their 6inch Cook’s Knife is my go to knife – easy and quick to sharpen and very comfortable in my hand). A range that we’ve been doing for many years.  

Later on, in talking with Jane Mason and Andy Wheeler on the newly renamed Diethelm Keller Brands which has now become DK Household Brands, we learned that they have expanded their Zyliss WheatStraw handled range of Kitchen tools to cover most, if not all, their Kitchen gadgets, reducing the plastic content by 50%. Depending on how important you view our reliance on oil and its derivatives, this may, or may not, be on your radar. Personally, I’m very pleased that they have made this move. Indeed, they are not alone as Dexam, for instance, are also moving in this direction as well.

Shop All Zyliss Wheatstraw Utensils

We saw a number of our other favourites, who included Paul at Haus who import the bulletproof, uncoated De Buyer mineral B frying pans and he had an offer on their Black Iron (a similar product, slightly lighter) 28cm Frying Pan that we can sell for just over £20.

Peter at Cellar Dine whose unique and creative barware accessories (for example the Zap Cap for easily removing crown caps with one strike of the palm) we will be listing again after a long absence, Nick at Burton McCall was pushing the Stanley Quencher  tumbler and Flip Straw tumblers (both online sensations!?! … I am told). James at CKS had some new lines in silicon including some very practical, attractive and decent sized trivets.

Bryony and Howard at Dexam, who’s ranges I was already up to date with due to Bryony’s diligence (e.g. the Sintra lines I talked about HERE).

The Stanley Quencher Tumbler

Zyliss Wheatstraw Ice Cream Scoop

Shop The Sintra Collection

On visiting the George East (now renamed Dayes) stand, we were met by a crowd of Jo, Theresa*, Laura and Nick (not to forget Andrew Green who was one of our first Le Creuset Account managers, about thirty years ago). They showed us the redesigned Tala Performance Non-stick Bakeware which will shortly have a wider rim making it easier to handle, even with gloves on.   

*I once stood Theresa up for an 8.30am appointment (I can’t, even now, believe it, but I forgot she was coming) when she was working for Eddingtons, another of our suppliers. That was in the late nineties.

About a year ago she ceased mentioning it!

So, it’s now 9.30 Thursday evening and this piece has to be examined for its readability, grammar and punctuation by Paul and Andi first thing tomorrow, and for me, I really need to reply to some urgent emails now.

So that’s my trade show report and that’s it for this week.

I hope you have a pleasant and peaceful weekend.

Warm regards

Andrew

Andrew Bluett-Duncan

Director