The Company
Philosophy‚The fullest meal is empty of mirth, if the host’s encouragement and eagerness do not show the guests that they are welcome.’
Thus wrote our poet Friedrich Schiller.
The perfection in a gastronomy enterprise exceeds by far the mere preparation of meals. Frictionless coordination between virtuosity in the kitchen, excellent service, and pleasant surroundings go hand in glove.
History
The Zieher Company was founded by Christa and Manfred Zieher in 1986. The original business idea of the company was to become a supplier of hotel articles. Mr. Zieher, after having represented the firms WMF, Rosenthal and Thomas Porcelain in Northeast Bavaria for ten years, wanted to address the same group of clients with new products.
Due to the steady expansion of the newly-founded company, in staff as well as in business potential, the company had to move premises twice in recent years.
After a ‚stopover’ in St. Georgen/Bayreuth, the company eventually settled into the current premises in Himmelkron in October 1998. These were enlarged in 2000 through the construction of a new warehouse. Only five years later another new warehouses was built to ensure that stock capacity keeps up with the steadily increasing turnover of the business. Today the product range comprises circa 3,000 articles for gastronomy, hotel and kitchen. For 20 years now our nationwide gastronomy wholesale has been and keeps supplying specialised dealers in the gastronomy sector, self-service markets, the C+C as well as the bulk consumer sector.
The Zieher company has grown at an average of 20% p.a. and ships its products into more than 30 countries worldwide.
One son of the family, Dominik Zieher, is sales director for Germany since 2000, while another son, Oliver Zieher, is in charge of design, product development and quality management for the company since 2005.
Zieher’s strategic target group, hotels and restaurant chains as well as bulk caterers on medium and high levels, has an above-average growth rate. Zieher pursues the aim of offering a decisively more economic alternative to established brands - at nearly the same quality level. Zieher gives a 10-year guarantee of availability for cutlery and chinaware series, and a 5-year guarantee for the cookware series ‘Kapp’.
Zieher’s 250-page main catalogue appears every March at a circulation of 70,000 copies. Starting in 2007, Zieher’s completely refurbished webpage, with integrated webshop (www.zieher.com), allows clients from all over the world to browse the virtual catalogue, retrieve information about the company itself, sign up for the newsletter, and have a glance at the variety of the company’s product range. Every September appears a special brochure announcing novelties as well as price reductions for existing products.
From Import Business to Established Brand
Starting as an importer of gastronomy supplies, the company and its product range soon grew to a considerable size.
As early as 1988 the company developed its own cutlery brand Zieher. In 2000 the company began the development and production of its own chinaware brands, followed by glass products for gastronomy use in 2003.
In recent years the company’s efforts focused increasingly on strict quality management as well as on the development of new creations for Zieher’s own product range. After several years filled with endeavours to work out an individual profile that differentiates Zieher from its competitors on the market, Zieher has now achieved its goal just in time for the 20th anniversary of the company’s existence.
The results of this process can be seen in the creation of exclusive china series, many individual cutlery-, china-, and glass items, and innovations in the field of buffet and service supplies. Slowly but steadily Zieher’s new image, supported by intensified PR activities, is achieving an effect among high-profile hotel and restaurant clients.
Manfred Zieher:
‘During the last months we have noticed an increasing interest in our products, as well as queries from hotels of the 4/5-star category. Our young team of currently 30 employees always endeavours to pass on the trends and innovations in the world’s leading markets to our customers. We import our merchandise from 15 different countries. The centre of our activities is Asia. Within Europe we ship our products to 20 different countries, the centre of attention here being Eastern Europe.’
Our new showroom is supposed to demonstrate the change in customer orientation of the Zieher company as well as to make our products appear within an adequate frame. It finds high acceptance among national and international clients and meets the highest demands in transparent room design and modern restaurant architecture.
Beyond these achievements many innovations are projected for 2007, such as a variable buffet series in glass, steel, and natural rock - as well as multi-level trays for the table top sector - and the expansion of the chinaware miniatures series ‘Petit Chef’.
Facts and Figures:
1986 Foundation of the company by Christa and Manfred Zieher with headquarters in Bayreuth
1991 Move into larger premises with more storage space in St. Georgen/Bayreuth
1998 Renewed removal to the current headquarters in Himmelkron
2000 Construction of a heated warehouse that holds circa 700 pallets and more than 3000 storage locations for the items
2005 Construction of a 2nd warehouse with a capacity of circa 1,000 pallets
11/2005 Planning and construction of the new Zieher Showroom and more office space on circa 290 square metres
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