The nonfood future lies in Europe

What does the Leifheit company stand for?

The Leifheit and Soehnle brands are among the fastest growing consumer goods brands in Germany. For many decades, they have stood for durable and high-quality German branded quality.

„Made in Germany“ enjoys an excellent reputation worldwide. For example, we manufacture cleaning products, rotary clothes dryers and coffee pots in Germany. Leifheit’s 30-plus-strong research and development team keeps coming up with clever products that make consumers‘ daily lives at home easier and more convenient.

The Leifheit brand is also the market leader in Germany in many areas, such as ironing boards, clothes racks, rotary clothes dryers and some cleaning product groups, as well as some kitchen utensils. Leifheit brand sales in Germany in 2021 were 28 percent higher than in 2019.

Soehnle brand sales in Germany in 2021 were 54 percent higher than in 2019. Soehnle stands for „precision with passion,“ meaning high-quality, chic, durable and very precise personal scales and kitchen scales.

How was the Scaling-Up Success strategy developed and why is it so successful?

Scaling-Up Success boldly transfers Procter & Gamble’s principles of success, which have been tried and tested for decades, to the household goods market. Leifheit and Soehnle have greatly improved their product quality and have been rewarded for this with many test victories from renowned magazines and institutes for years. As a result of these test victories, more and more consumers are choosing our high-quality premium products.

At the same time, we have spectacularly increased our spending on TV advertising. In 2019, we spent around 3 million euros gross on TV advertising; this expenditure was then increased more than tenfold within a year to 31 million euros in 2020, and significantly increased again to 37 million euros in the following year 2021.

This strategy has been met with great enthusiasm in the retail sector, because with the TV-advertised premium products of the German Leifheit and Soehnle brands, retailers can significantly increase their unit value per product compared with, for example, cheap products from Asia, and thus generate more profit in the nonfood sector.

At the same time, Leifheit can score points with its German and European production – with delivery reliability and availability of goods. The result is impressive: Leifheit brand sales, for example, will grow by 13 percent in Germany in 2020 and by a further 14 percent in 2021 compared with the previous year.

What does the future of nonfood look like?

The future of nonfood in Europe lies with heavily promoted European brands like Leifheit and Soehnle. After all, the fragility of international commodity flows and the unfortunate increase in trade wars and sanctions mean that a European retailer can safely and reliably do best with products made in Europe.

In times of information overload and fake news, decades-old brands like Leifheit and Soehnle offer people the reliability they expect from nonfood.

Above all, however, is digitization. When a consumer wants to buy something from the leading online retailers, they will usually search directly for the brands that are heavily advertised on TV, such as Leifheit, Soehnle or SodaStream. So as digitization increases, so does the ROI of TV advertising.

Which nonfood products should you definitely keep an eye on now?

When it comes to sustainability, consumers are primarily looking for durable German brand products that make their lives noticeably easier. A good example is Leifheit’s new test winner among mops, the Aqua Power Vac. This product practically halves the time needed to clean floors. It combines mopping and vacuuming in a single operation. The Leifheit brand, as well as our test win for vacuum mops, make it easy to choose this exact product.

In addition, products that dry laundry without electricity, such as rotary dryers and tumble dryers, are experiencing a lot of tailwind. As a result, more and more consumers are opting for environmentally friendly and electricity-free laundry drying. Why spend hundreds of euros on an electric clothes dryer these days, only to then spend a lot of money on electricity for each drying process and pollute the climate with this unnecessary power consumption? With a rotary dryer or a clothes dryer in the fresh air is much more environmentally friendly and cheaper.

Note: This article contains promotional content.