While there is no shortage of irrelevant details, the article is very light on relevant details. What prevents the factory from staying in business? Not enough orders? The French people supposedly love this glassware and orders pour in whenever the company is mentioned. They have the factory up and running, they have employees. The workers own the means of production, what could be better than that?
Why do they need to expand into new product ranges, if the existing products are in such high demand? I'm not sure if the proposed pint glasses for British pubs are a sure winner. Why not stick with what already works?
We had Duralex glasses in my schools' canteens. Not because they were high-quality but because they were cheap and (back then, at least) they readily shattered. I can buy basically the same quality glasses for 1/3 or 1/4 the price from ikea. Don't think they can compete on price with glasses made in China, Vietnam, Bulgaria or wherever production is cheapest these days.
The article mentions it, but don’t insist on it. Duralex is now quite a special company: they were a renowned and beloved brand that was heading toward bankruptcy, until last year when the company was bought by its own workers and turned into a cooperative.
Since then, they have stayed afloat, probably thanks mainly to people wanting to support a worker-owned business by buying their glasses, but still, it works.
It’s a pretty positive story so far, and I hope they’ll continue to thrive under this new structure.
The brand suffered from energy price hikes, felt particularly sharply after 2022, and its marketing could clearly be improved. Only now, after more than two or three decades, are new designs finally appearing on the roadmap.
These glasses were once ubiquitous in public middle-school cafeterias, so the emotional attachment runs deep across generations.
The article doesn't even mention that this company already went bankrupt once this century, in 2008. Like some of the other posters, I furnished my cupboards with Duralex decades ago and never needed any more. In the same way, I filled my flatware drawers with Oneida decades before Oneida disappeared, and my plates are all from some long-forgotten Swedish stoneware maker, and I bought all my furniture from a dead Italian brand at a showroom that no longer exists in San Francisco. I have a personal pet theory on this, which is that the astronomical cost of housing has squeezed out all other aspects of home furnishing from people's budgets, in a race to the bottom where the last brand standing is Ikea.
Selling products based on nostalgia does not work. Europe needs to do far more keep it's industry afloat and to make locally produced products competitive.
Duralex is currently selling products at 10x the costs of what a similar product, made in China, costs on Amazon. This is not sustainable. These enormous differences in prices mean that only very people can afford their products. It is a brand which sells an everyday item at prices, which are legitimately hard to afford for most of the population.
Obviously a company like this can not succeed long term. It is totally uncompetitive, except for some brand recognition and positive brand perception. These obviously help, but will do nothing for the long term success.
As the article said Duralex was the brand use by a large number of school cantinas in France. Inside of each glass there’s a small number used by the brand to identify the mold used for the creation of the glass. For kids that was a way to decide who is going to fetch the water for the table (smaller number or higher number of the table).
That’s why the CE is holding his glass like that in the guardian article.
Beside the nostalgia i think a lot of people support them because it’s a SCOP (the majority of the capital of the company is owned by the employees) [1] and it’s nice to see that another kind of company is possible.
If they experience a flood of orders every time they are mentioned in the media and people flock to throw them money when they are in trouble, it seems like they should raise prices commensurate with their costs increasing and should probably invest in a little advertising. The brand seems strong and undamaged but they continue to struggle? That seems like a pretty easy fix.
During a trip to Venice I had the good fortune of touring http://www.giuman.it/ and it was highly educational. Bringing the furnaces up to temperature takes time and turning them off each day isn't a good option. Gas comes primarily from Russia and price spikes have really hurt the business.
A few years ago, a journalist went to Duralex, after they restructured (to be own by the employees), and show off the glasses's solidity, live. Every single one of them broke:
Duralex were used and loved in Spain, too. Most houses still have some of them, although nowadays there's lot more competition. I would pay twice for their glassware, quality-wise is good stuff.
I have bought a lot of glassware over a couple decades. My usual trick is to look at restaurant supply shops, since they usually have a wide variety to select trade offs in style, price, quality, etc. Somehow I’d never come across Duralex until a few months ago when I was shopping to reorganize my own cupboards. The Duralex stuff I got has been the best glassware I’ve ever had, hands down. I’ll probably order more to put in storage just in case their ongoing struggles disrupt availability in the future.
I get it—they’re expensive and so on—but they really are a superior product.
I remember looking at their website and thinking the product design was horrible. The "Picardie" design is iconic, but not really in a good way. In my mind it says "functional" and "old". That's probably unfair, but it is what it is. Everything else they have is generic in the extreme. The IKEA catalog has far more interesting glassware.
> the soaring cost of gas and electricity were the firm’s largest and most worrying expense
Difficult to have factories when basic utilities are expensive. China has a big advantage there as well, not just in labour costs. They invested heavily in energy infrastructure over the past few decades.
How did they invest in that infrastructure ? The LGFVs they used for that are so large the only way to pay for their loans is to throw in new LGFVs.
If there's a place where the music will stop really suddenly and really hard, it's in China, where all this infrastructure to build cheap glasses will completely crumble under the cost of its own financing. They're not increasing margins, so they're not gonna match their bond yields...
I know Duralex because they're the de facto coffee cup for a latte in the world's best cafes. I dunno how or why it happened, but since about 2008 if you go to a cafe in Melbourne and your latte comes in anything BUT one of those Duralex glasses, you should run for the hills.
I don’t understand the comments here crowing about how this employee-owned company is a success story against capitalism or something. It was going to go out of business, employees bought it, they also couldn’t make it profitable and had to resort to effectively a gofundme to not collapse. And somehow this is a win against profit driven companies? Do you not see how utterly non-viable this is at scale?
Years ago I bought a bunch of duralex glasses, to replace my faded college IKEA plasticware. I still have every single one of them, and none are worse for wear. They've been dropped, survived several moves, and even toddlers, and are still going strong
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 47.3 ms ] threadWhy do they need to expand into new product ranges, if the existing products are in such high demand? I'm not sure if the proposed pint glasses for British pubs are a sure winner. Why not stick with what already works?
None of this is explained in the article.
Since then, they have stayed afloat, probably thanks mainly to people wanting to support a worker-owned business by buying their glasses, but still, it works.
It’s a pretty positive story so far, and I hope they’ll continue to thrive under this new structure.
These glasses were once ubiquitous in public middle-school cafeterias, so the emotional attachment runs deep across generations.
Duralex is currently selling products at 10x the costs of what a similar product, made in China, costs on Amazon. This is not sustainable. These enormous differences in prices mean that only very people can afford their products. It is a brand which sells an everyday item at prices, which are legitimately hard to afford for most of the population.
Obviously a company like this can not succeed long term. It is totally uncompetitive, except for some brand recognition and positive brand perception. These obviously help, but will do nothing for the long term success.
Got some links to the Chinese glasses of comparable quality?
[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_coop%C3%A9ra...
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x957g7q
I get it—they’re expensive and so on—but they really are a superior product.
Difficult to have factories when basic utilities are expensive. China has a big advantage there as well, not just in labour costs. They invested heavily in energy infrastructure over the past few decades.
If there's a place where the music will stop really suddenly and really hard, it's in China, where all this infrastructure to build cheap glasses will completely crumble under the cost of its own financing. They're not increasing margins, so they're not gonna match their bond yields...
Great product