Food 52 & Secret Ingredient Beef Stew
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At its founding, community-based food website Food52 asked its readers to share their near food-stained recipes, those inherited from Grandma and often called upon for special occasions. In the company's latest business move, the same sentiment holds true—only this time it's moving from the bookshelf to the serveware cupboard. This morn, Food52 announced that it has acquired heritage home brand Dansk from New York–based private disinterestedness firm Heart Lane Partners. And plans to get the Food52 audition involved in the revival of the about 70-year-former homewares visitor are already in progress.
In late 2009, New York Times food editor Amanda Hesser left the title to launch Food52, a nutrient blog that not merely shared recipes gathered from its readers, only also provided an east-commerce channel to help readers source the kitchen tools and ingredients featured. Every bit the site'south audience grew, then did its shoppable platform: Today, Food52 reaches more than 25 million monthly users and represents hundreds of makers and manufacturers through its online shop.
Newly acquired Dansk, the 67-year-erstwhile homewares visitor known for its Danish designs, volition join Food52'southward make portfolio, which includes in-house, utility-focused homewares line Five Two. "To put it simply, we really love Dansk and its history," says Hesser. "We felt it was such a perfect complement because while information technology'southward also about utility, it'south actually virtually design and beautiful products that can enhance the style of your dwelling."
In 1954, Ted and Martha Nierenberg traveled to Europe on a mission to find an industrial product they might be able to introduce to the American market. It was there, while visiting the Danish Museum of Art & Blueprint—Kunstindustrimuseet, that they discovered a set of teak and stainless steel flatware past Danish sculptor and designer Jens Quistgaard. As the story goes, Ted darted into the designer'south studio that same twenty-four hours, insisting that he contribute to their new business venture. Under Quistgaard's creative direction, the visitor brought midcentury Scandinavian design to the U.S., including the enameled steel Kobenstyle cookware (still a bestseller today) and the teak Fjord flatware, among other designs.
Dansk was purchased by Brown-Forman Corporation in a greenbacks deal of roughly $seventy million in 1991 and soon thereafter incorporated under Lenox, an existing subsidiary in Brownish-Forman'south make portfolio. Unable to weather the financial crunch of 2008, the assets of the Lenox portfolio, which included Lenox, Dansk, Gorham and Department 56, were sold in a defalcation sale to highest bidder Blaring Capital Partners in 2009. Renamed Lenox Corporation, Dansk operated for years under the new ownership; later, Reed & Barton and additional non-core brands including Kate Spade New York likewise came to reside nether the Lenox Corporation umbrella.
But in the face of still another fiscal crisis, this fourth dimension pandemic-induced, the parent company moved swiftly, permanently closing all Lenox outlet and warehouse stores in July 2020 as well as its last remaining U.Due south. factory in Kinston, North Carolina—one of the simply bone china manufacturers in the country, producing upwards of 20,000 pieces of fine china a day—to shift production overseas. A few months later, in October, New York–based individual equity firm Centre Lane Partners acquired Lenox Corporation and its portfolio of brands, with Centre Lane managing director Mayank Singh citing enthusiasm in "partnering with management to participate in the side by side phase of Lenox's transformation and growth."
Hesser recalls information technology being around that same time when she and executives from Lenox began talking about a potential acquisition. Food52, in contrast, was in a celebratory stage: The 11-year-old visitor was closing out its first-ever assisting twelvemonth in 2020 and was valued at roughly $100 one thousand thousand. Food52 and Dansk had an existing human relationship: The Danish housewares brand had been selling through Food52'due south e-commerce platform for several years, and "our audience immediately continued with the brand," says Hesser. (In fact, Food52 had go one of Lenox's biggest vendors, a board fellow member avowed to Hesser at an industry conference a few years back.)
Not long afterward Centre Lane's acquisition, Lenox reconnected. "We were already friendly, and I think they were excited for Dansk to live on with a visitor that had an appreciation for its by and a clear vision for what to do with it in the future," says Hesser. "Information technology but became a actually easy conversation about what it could look similar."
On paper, the understanding looks similar the taking ownership of nearly 70 years of Dansk archives—photos, process sketches, advertising, and messages included—as well every bit bold the heritage homeware company's manufacturing relationships and sales channels around the globe. Fiscal terms of the deal were not disclosed. "We honey what Dansk stands for…that feels so aligned with who nosotros are as a make and it seemed similar a dream that if nosotros had the opportunity to acquire it, then nosotros should. And we should go along that story alive and going and position it for decades to come," says Hesser. "It felt similar the phase that we are in, in our business organisation, nosotros are very well positioned to do that, and nosotros felt similar we had a really clear vision for the potential for the brand and nosotros leapt at the opportunity."
The new owners arroyo the conquering equally a type of historical revival project—keeping in mind what steps are required in order to make the brand last for some other lxx years. The plan is three-pronged: Expand upon the color and size assortment of core heritage products, reissue select archival designs, and introduce fresh Dansk designs in limited-edition collaborations with partners to help continue Dansk's legacy. To oversee the undertaking, Hesser has tapped Christine Muhlke, make strategist and founder of food consultancy Bureau Ten, who also held editorial posts at Bon Appètit and the New York Times Mag.
"You know that dream where you get lost at a museum overnight? It kind of feels like that," says Muhlke of the opportunity to pore over the company's archive. In improver to organizing the flat files, Muhlke, who worked alongside the pattern editors during her stint at the New York Times Magazine and has long been an enthusiast of the subject ("Ilse Crawford is ane of my passwords, let's just put information technology that way," she says), is in the process of selecting more than 100 Dansk archival designs to be reissued.
Take the maker'southward best-selling Kobenstyle line, for example. Only a fraction of the designs in the original drove are even so in production today. "I'd honey to reintroduce some of the pieces that withal experience so fresh and forward-thinking today to add depth and latitude," Muhlke explains. "[The company was] doing $33 million a yr in business concern in 1983. It was a much bigger range, so I'd love to become back in and see what was leading in the '80s that dropped out."
Lucky for Muhlke, Dansk's vast historical range is every bit commonly found in Grandma'southward cupboard as it is in permanent museum collections, including the Louvre, MoMA, and the Danish Design Museum. The visitor plans to crowdsource with its community members past requesting a peek at their ain vintage Dansk collections (more often than not through the newly acquired Dansk Instagram account) to help inform the reintroductions. And just every bit Dansk had collaborated with designers in the by, namely Niels Refsgaard, Arne Jacobsen, and jewelry designer Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe on product, as well as Andy Warhol and Irving Penn on branding, Hesser says working with creative partnerships on limited-edition collections will exist an of import component in maintaining Dansk's longevity going forward—and perhaps from a broader design scope. "Dansk capitalized on a move of Scandinavian pattern, which was great, only I think there'due south a style to broaden while maintaining the heart and soul of the brand," she says.
With the revival swiftly underway, Hesser tin can't help merely reflect on this latest ingredient in Food52'south big-picture plans. She notes that the opportunity to build out the company's suite of owned brands across cooking and dwelling—through a mix of in-business firm development and conquering—is an exciting notion that remains, well, on the table.
Source: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/food52-acquires-dansk-plans-for-the-danish-homeware-brands-revival
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