Thursday, 13 April 2006 | Levent OZLER
Enrico Products' New Line of Housewares Combines Design with Bamboo
Enrico Products' New Line of Housewares Combines Italian Inspired Designs with Environmentally Friendly Bamboo
Enrico Products, a Seattle-based housewares company, released its 2006 Catalog featuring a collection of stylish bamboo cutting boards, bowls, and household accessories. This Italian inspired product line establishes Enrico Products as a major player in the bamboo housewares market. The company will formally introduce the new line at the Gourmet Housewares Show in Las Vegas, May 9-11.
The company's bamboo collection includes several attractive cutting boards, the "Flute" series of elegant hand-turned bowls, a variety of sculpted kitchen utensils, and accessories such as the Enrico box cheese grater. The catalog also features the "Rootworks" line of burl wood bowls.
Enrico Products' first product design was borrowed from Enrico Ratti, the grandfather of founder Jim Ratti. Enrico and his new bride immigrated to the United States from Italy in the early 1900's with few belongings, so Enrico hand built the cooking utensils they needed to prepare the traditional Italian meals they loved. Many of the sturdy graters he created are still being used by the Ratti family today.
Jim Ratti used his grandfather's grater as a model when he hand crafted the box grater in the bamboo collection. "The classic beauty and functionality of my grandfather's grater design inspired me to create a modern version. The finished piece was so stunning, I decided to build a company around it," says Ratti. "My initial box graters were made using exotic woods like rosewood and bubinga, but once the company decided to market the product on a larger scale, we made the switch to bamboo because it's an environmentally friendly alternative to hardwoods. That decision really drove the future design direction of the company. Bamboo is a perfect material for kitchen and tabletop items because of its beauty, fantastic growth rate, durability, and water resistance."
Enrico Products now uses bamboo for nearly all of its stylish designs. Indeed, bamboo enjoys incredible popularity in the marketplace as architects and interior designers increasingly specify it as a flooring material for the same reasons Mr. Ratti states above. This development has opened up a market for a variety of complementary bamboo products for the home.
|
