Appliance Upgrades Highlight Housewares Show
Back from the recent San Francisco Gourmet Products Show, the largest U.S. kitchen housewares exhibit next to Chicago’s annual show, local retail buyers will be looking to provide more shelf space to accommodate innovations gathered for the home kitchen of 1989 through 1990.
Buyers agreed that the exposition was not just enormous but mind-boggling in its presentation of new styles and direction trends. Product designs reflected everything from Victorian to ultra-high-tech tones, with a scattering of Art Deco, ‘50s nostalgia, Italian and Southwest motifs. The last, surprisingly, has remained strong despite predictions that it would be phased out.
Black, a sophisticated accent color on kitchen electrics for the white kitchen, has remained pervasive as has the leading white, followed by brighter cobalt blue and flashy red. Flower patterns bloomed on china, linens, pails, storage boxes and other mass merchandise, an endorsement of the growing interest in Victorian design.
However, regarding product development, buyer consensus was that there were many upgrades of existing products but actually only a minuscule number of new inventions.
Joyce Seidner, owner of the Village Kitchen Shoppe in Glendora, was still very impressed with the show. “It reminded me of the good old shows, where all the big vendors were there. I felt the excitement,” she said. “Even though it wasn’t crowded--all the better for us as buyers--I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
One of the new items that caught Seidner’s and other buyers’ interest for its quick-brewing feature and its superior coffee taste was the MicroBrew ($30) from Farberware. The two-cup carafe and filter basket/reservoir system make two cups of coffee in four minutes and one cup in less than two minutes. Using a cool water extraction method, the MicroBrew is able to offer a better cup of coffee than other automatic drip coffee makers because it brews at a lower temperature, preventing bitter oils from being released from the coffee grounds.
When asked about small but useful gadgets, Seidner voted for the Shortening Dispenser from All R Prodx ($15). (Remember how difficult it is to pack and accurately measure shortening into a cup?) This plastic pump easily attaches to the top of 48-ounce cans of any brand of shortening and gauges and dispenses the exact amount of shortening you want.
Sandra Elliot, owner of The Urban Gourmet in Pasadena, didn’t find the gourmet show as exciting. “I guess I was expecting to find more new things,” she said, “but now it’s just a matter of ordering the same products with the new models. I was looking for new video tapes, (such as) Martha Stewart’s entertaining series, the V-Slicer and Wusthof Trident’s cutlery videos. I find that people love watching them at my shop and are buying them for reference.”
One of the products that Elliot is reordering is the Hitachi Home Bakery ($300), which is available as a new, upgraded model. The revised unit reduces baking time by an hour and offers a selection board for three loaf sizes as well as option for light, medium to dark browning.
A Good Year
It appeared to be a good reigning year for Hitachi and other automatic “home bakeries,” the stars of last year’s show. This great invention from the Japanese gives you freshly baked bread in about four hours by going through the automatic mixing, kneading, rising and baking processes. Despite skeptical forecasts from some early buyers due to the units’ high price tags of around $300, the bread machines were met with success in the marketplace and continue to gain consumer appeal for their fresh results, according to Elliot and other retailers.
An advancement in this hot category introduced at this year’s show was Zojirushi America Corp.’s Home Bakery ($350). This electronic appliance not only bakes bread in three sizes but also makes cakes, various doughs and fresh fruit jams. It also has a quick-baking feature that gives the user an option to use rapid-rise yeast and therefore cuts down the total processing time to two hours. Furthermore, the machine also allows you to program your own recipe, according to food consultant and stylist Marlene Brown, who has fully tested and demonstrated the machine. She said, “The quality of the bread is good, but it hinges on the recipe. It works best with bread flour. With your own recipes, you can reset the kneading, rising and baking time.” She added that the machine works well with dark flour too.
Another appliance reorder from Elliot is for Edgecraft Co. but this time for its more versatile Chef’s Choice Diamond Hone Sharpener Professional Model 110 ($79.95). This three-stage sharpener has improved magnetic guides that are capable of sharpening all lengths of kitchen knives as well as pocket knives, fillet knives and most hunting knives. “It also now comes in black or the original white,” she said.
Elliot also noted that there was an increased number of water purifying systems at the show. Even Melitta has come up with the concept with its brand new coffee maker, she said. The new Melitta Pure Drip is a 12-cup automatic coffee maker that contains a compact ion exchange and activated carbon filtration system. It is designed to filter out impurities and hardening agents from the water during brewing.
According to Myra Bauman, spokesperson for the Broadway stores, their buyers who previewed the show felt that tea kettles, both in stainless and enamel, will be going strong in the marketplace.
Espresso Market Growing
The Broadway buyers also shared positive responses on the Hitachi Bread Bakery; Farberware’s MicroBrew; Joyce Chen’s non-stick, flat-bottomed, 14-inch Peking Wok; Roscho’s nonstick professional bakeware, and the sleek look of the heavier-gauge Copco cast-iron cookware from Denmark.
Of major interest to the buying group is Krups’ L’Espresso/Cappuccino Maker with Perfect-Froth, which will be shipped in the fall. As the market for espresso/cappuccino machines continues to expand, Krups predicts sales of over $100 million for this category by 1992.
Debuted at the show, Krups’ hot new exclusive is the only home machine that will accommodate Illycaffe’s L’Espresso pod, which can now only be used in restaurant-type machines. The new machine eliminates the need for careful measuring, grinding, tamping and proper pressure application. The pod will also give you the desirable golden crema foam.
In her third year of going to this Bay Area expo, Lynne Carl of Espirit de Cuisine in Pasadena said: “It was almost like a mini-Chicago show. They have combined the gourmet products with in-style and home organization. However it seems that the word gourmet is being expanded to include these other categories.”
As a small retailer carrying non-electric kitchen basics, gadgets and accessories, she explained: “There were too many across-the-board displays by the big guys. Small manufacturers were forced out, and for me there wasn’t a choice of new and real specialty gadgets.”
Carl shared some of the items, old and new, that were of interest to her at the show as well as some other trends:
Cats, Cows Big; Ducks Fade
“I liked the hot rocks (one of them is the Frieling Hot Rock from the Swiss Alps), a nonelectrical cooking grill; also, baking pizza stones, which now come in square stones, and Clipper Mill’s vegetable brushes (potato, asparagus, mushroom, carrot and corn), which I like to combine with other little gadgets for shower gift packages.
“I also liked animal designs. Cats and cows are still big but ducks have faded out.”
In addition to these products, the following show items were also noted.
Jumping on the bandwagon with black goods, Cuisinarts showcased its black versions of three popular products: the Mini-Mate Plus Chopper/Grinder ($40), the Classic ($175) and the Little Pro Plus Food Processor ($109).
Recognizing the lack of design in cutlery, Glesser Messer, one of West Germany’s finest cutlery manufacturers, introduced its Creative Collection (from $15 a piece) designed by famous designers. Distributed by the Markuse Corp., the knives include carving sets, Capriccio series with carrot, tomato-design handles, bread and carving knives; the wavy handled (form fitted to the grasping hand) Coltello l’Arte knives and slippage-free one-piece Composition knives.
Renowned for introducing the concept of microarchitecture, Alessi has done it again with its new Alessi Cocktail Shaker ($235) by Marianne Brandt. The spherical shaped shaker with a built in strainer and sweeping handle that reaches from spout to base was recreated from the original 1925 design by German industrial designer Brandt.
Ease of Cleaning
The enduring beauty, nonporous composition and ease of cleaning of Dupont Corian have made this marble-like surface an ideal chopping and serving board. RondaBoard from D. F. Mickelson $ Co. (from $20) has a selection of oval, round, square and paddle-shaped Corian boards.
One of the products endorsed by Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet, is Damco’s set of high-carbon, no-stain, molybdemum-vanadium-chromium steel knives. Now called the Frugal Gourmet Selection, the Messermeister forged cutlery knives (priced from $28 apiece) are hand-crafted in Solingen, West Germany. They are very sharp with a long-lasting edge that is easy to maintain.
Donna Deane, The Times’ Test Kitchen food stylist, contributed to research for this article.
