ACC1Ó
Lékué: Exciting wares come out of the Kitchen
With ACC1Ó we have worked hand in hand on a project to create our own shows and demonstrations in our outlets to provide visual entertainment.
Bathing caps, ice cube trays, non-slip bath mats, rubber brushes and cake moulds. These among others, were the first products that entrepreneur José María Llorente, founder of Lékué used to sell when he first went into business some thirty years ago. Now, his factory near Barcelona has some 90 full-time workers revolutionising the world of cooking through use of platinum cure silicone kitchenware, bringing the buzz back into baking and the swing into steaming, with products like Lékué’s new steaming bag, currently its top seller. The brand is already famous in Spain and fast becoming a household name in France, Finland, and Japan.
“In 2005 our new management shifted the focus of business, until then mainly aimed at manufacturing for major household names, deciding instead to create an own brand line for kitchenware. Making a break with the past, they opted for an avant-garde line innovating to meet traditional cooking needs and finding novel solutions to them. Since then, they have created over 170 new products which are livening up kitchens from Toledo to Tokyo. The strength of Lékué’s innovation was in use of the imagination and effort of four in-house and four external product designers.”
The creation of the Lékué brand, the innovation, the retail margin and burgeoning number of suppliers across some 40 countries where the products are sold, has led sales to rocket (from 3,000 orders in 2005 to 16,000 in 2009). The company has already surpassed its 4-year sales target two years early and is now making upward revisions of future turnover. In 2008 sales hit €11.5m and this year are expected to pass the €22 million mark! In June 2010 Lékué opened on-line, selling direct to the consumer for those without a local supplier.
The power of ideas:
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"If a business does not have a brand, but just simply manufactures, it can often find itself forced to cut prices to suppliers.”
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"The new business plan meant heading off in a new direction. We decided to put end users at the centre of our thinking and dream up new products which could offer them something unlike anything else on the market.”
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"We want our outlets to be places that speak to customers, generating excitement that arouses interest among buyers.”
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"With ACC1Ó we have worked hand in hand on a project to create our own shows and demonstrations in our outlets to provide visual entertainment, so the products can be seen in action as they really would be in anyone’s kitchen at home. After all, what really helps us sell is just that – being able to get across the fun of using one item or another to the buying public at large."
Xavier Costa, General Manager Lékué
