During this year’s World Cup, hundreds of thousands of football fans will be on the move in Germany – on campsites, in town centers and around the stadiums. A good set of cutlery will come in handy there.  WMF (short for the Württemberg Metalware Factory) is marketing a special World Cup set of off-table folding cutlery – just the thing for getting to grips with that sausage and fries when you’re watching one of the games on a big screen. And in the world of commercial coffee machines, the WMF Company, based in Geislingen near Stuttgart, are the European market leaders.

To be successful in the free market, you have to set high standards for quality and design. WMF has been doing that for the last 151 years. To take just one example: the design of cutlery. Some designs are unchanged from as far back as the 1920s, but they’re still as popular as ever. Complementing these older classics is a range of modern designs, which tend to have simpler lines and a restrained elegance of form.

Just how many forks, spoons and knives the WMF workers produce every year is a closely-guarded secret. When asked, the company spokesperson politely steered the conversation onto the company’s competitors. But some of the listed company’s other statistics are very well known: in 2005, WMF made a profit of 8.5 million Euro on a turnover of just under 580 million Euro. That was a 5.3 percent increase over the previous year’s figure. The company has 150 outlets in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Recently a new production facility was opened in China, to add to the home factory in Geislingen.

Business growth is particularly healthy in the commercial coffee machine sector. WMF is doing very well out of the explosive spread across central and northern Europe in recent years of the ‘southern café culture’. In the thousands of new restaurants and cafés which have opened up, plain black or white coffee just won’t do any more: now there are dozens of varieties on offer - latte macchiato, mocchachino, espresso macchiato, to mention only a few. And the new coffee specialties need specialized coffee machines. The professional automated coffee machines are the most expensive products in the WMF range – but it’s the sector which is seeing the most rapid growth. There are 2,000 WMF machines in operation worldwide just on cruise liners. Luxury liners like the “Queen Mary“ can have as many as 50 fully automatic machines on board – preparing international coffee specialties for their discerning passengers.

Contact:

WMF Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft
Eberhardstraße
D-73309 Geislingen/Steige
Telefon: 0 73 31 - 25 1
Telefax: 0 73 31 - 4 53 87
E-Mail: info@wmf.de

http://www.wmf.de