The Heimerdingers have landed in Chicago!

     Well, actually on Friday afternoon.  And the windy city has been definitely that.  Hats and hoods were flying.  Made it to the International Home and Housewares Show yesterday. This is Carl's 4th visit to this incredible show and Nicole's first time.  McCormick place has grown over the years to a three building exhibit destination that pales only to the Frankfurter Messe, in Germany, which now has 11 halls (each of which is larger than any of the halls here)!  McCormick Place is huge, though.
     Our first stop was at the Wüsthof booth which was right on our way in.  The South building, where we spent all of Saturday, is at least 3 stories tall, maybe more! Wüsthof had a magnificent booth and even had a second miniature level. They were constantly busy as far as we could tell. But, we didn't stop there!
     Starting at 12:30, until about 5:30, we perused the South Hall, seeking out our familiar vendors and checking out all the new items that other companies had to offer. Along with Wüsthof, we visited Messermeister, Victorinox Swiss Army, Kai (the makers of the Shun knives), Opinel, Böker, and Kyocera. A lot of these companies are coming out with some really great new things and some exceptional improvements to their already known products.
     A couple examples would be the new color Edge Guards that Messermeister has, as well as translucent ones which give you the capability to see the silhouette. Now you will actually be able to know what knife you're pulling out of the drawer. Victorinox is coming out with new block sets, and new colors in the paring and utility knives. Böker has some new manicure tools and scissors coming out. Wüsthof and Opinel are the most exciting in our opinion and we will be giving you the details later tonight!

     We will have more details on what we saw for you later! Right now, we have some business to attend to!

It happened in Chicago, part 2

Somewhat belatedly, here is the last bit of Carl and Glenna's trip to the International Home and Housewares Show. I had a little trouble with format, which is why the big delay. (docx format, let me show you it.)
So here's the trip, in Carl's own words:

CHICAGO, PART 2
To digress a little bit, we arrived in ‘The Loop’ in downtown Chicago literally on the heals of the St. Patrick Day parade. Needless to say the residents were ‘restless’ and quite ‘happy’, shall we say.

Thankfully we decided to take the airport shuttle van, and our driver was a real pro, even took us through some of suburban Chicago, to avoid a traffic tie-up. And yes, they really do die the river green.
We saw it, but we went by so fast that there was no hope of a photo.

Anyway back at the ranch …er show, after we left the Dovo booth, we made our way to the Wusthof booth. Our representative, Ed Bartush, was there and spent quite a bit of time with us, showing a few new sets and such. Also, they have a new electric knife sharpener. The booth was quite busy, with lots of clients and prospective clients. Actually the attendance at the show was very good, and a number of booths like Wusthof were very busy.

From there we stopped for lunch (nothing amazing, but palatable). It was one of the few chances to sit down, though. In some cases, if you are a very good client of, say Wusthof or Dovo, you may be offered a seat at a table. At the house wares show in Germany, you would also be offered something to drink, and maybe a cookie. The only refreshment that was offered to us in this ‘old world’ tradition was at the J. A. Henckels booth.

By the way, we have been a dealer for J. A. Henckels for 104 years. My Great-grandfather went to the 1904 World’s Fair and met the Henckels people there for the first time. I will say that every booth we spent time in the different company's representatives were very helpful and informative.

After lunch we stopped back at the Dovo booth and snapped a picture of my wife and our representative. Earlier we had been to the Kershaw Shun booth and met the head of national sales. There have been delays in receiving the Shun knives, and he assured us that this was being dealt with, mostly with the building of a new factory here in the states.He took a lot of time and showed us the range of their lines. It was very cool. These knives, when we can get them, sell extremely well, and by the way are becoming the sweethearts of a number of the local chefs.

We walked by later, and who would be there but Alton Brown of the Food Network, signing autographs. Of course we got one!! Actually my wife posted up in the line waiting, and I went wandering because I had seen the Global knife booth. I was able to meet the people I had known only by their voices. I guess this is one of the things about going to the shows, except for the few companies that have representatives, is the fact that you get to put a name with a face.

I can safely say that we saw a majority of what we wanted to see, although rather hurriedly. We gathered a lot of info and made some contacts, which could hold us over for a year or two. However if the mood strikes again, we may just heading for the windy city sooner!!

Sounds like fun to me!

It happened in Chicago, part 1

Carl and Glenna spent all day running around the Lakefront building. They were there from 8:30 in the morning until 5 o'clock at night.
Most of their time was spent visiting various vendors. Carl tells me that he had identified 50 different vendors that he was interested in, but in the 8 hours they were there, he and Glenna were only able to see about 40. Most of those were brief visits, dropping off cards, picking up information; they spent more time perusing the booths of vendors we already, visiting with them and discovering new products.


The Shun booth was a big attraction, and not just because they had Alton Brown.(Of course Glenna got an autograph, are you crazy? His blend of cooking and science is irresistible.)
As we were saying before the digression, the knives themselves are lovely. Shun also had some awesome limited edition steak knives. It looks like other people thought so, too; apparently it was a bit hard to get a close look.

Sadly, Carl's camera hates the new computer, so we have a lot less pictures of the Housewares Show than we'd hoped to have. From what we have, you can get an idea of how crowded and busy the vendors room was. My feet would have fallen off from all of that walking around.

One of our favorite vendors, Dovo, was at the Show! Luckily, they had plenty of chairs, so Carl and Glenna got a bit of a rest. Dovo supplies all of our manicure sets and a large percentage of our sewing and hair scissors/shears, and individual manicure implements. Here's a picture of Anne Rothstein, Jens, and Glenna. Jens is a German representative of the company, who we get to see every so often. He travels around once a year with a huge bag of manicure sets, so that Carl can look at them before deciding what to order for the next year. Everyone in the store gets a chance to ooh and aah, it's always a lot of fun. Just hope that Jens doesn't test your German skills! (Mine are, admittedly, horrible.)

To be continued...

Where's Carl?

This weekend is the International Home and Housewares Show 2008, up in Chicago. If you're going to be there, keep an eye out for Carl and give him a wave. Unlike Waldo, Carl will be a bit harder to spot, as he doesn't wear bright red stripes.

According to its website, the International Home & Housewares Show is the world's premier housewares marketplace. It features more than 2,000 exhibitors from 34 countries, and more than 20,000 buyers from over 100 countries around the world.
Personally, I'd like to spend some time in the international pavilions; they sound very interesting.

So there will be a lot of people there. Still, keep an eye out for Carl (and Glenna, too!) because they'll be there all weekend. With any luck, we'll get some nice pictures and fun stories to post here. :)

Have a good weekend everybody!