Fagor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fagor is a Spanish multinational home appliance maker.
Formed in 1956 in a small workshop in Mondragon what was to become the largest co-operative group in the world was started. Today, The Mondragon Co-Operative Corporation has become a leading business group in the Basque Country and one of the top-ranking groups in Spain.
MCC brings together 122 industrial companies, 6 financial organisations, 14 retailers, 4 research centres, 1 university and 14 insurance companies and international trade services. It has a turnover of more than 14,700 million pounds and a workforce of over 69,000 people.
The group is divided up into three main divisions: the finance division, the retail division and the industrial division.
A program of major international expansion has seen Fagor achieve a workforce of 6,074 people and factories located in three continents: Europe, America and Africa with 13 subsidiaries throughout the world as well as a major sales network present in 80 countries in 5 continents.
Currently, 44% of Fagor's sales are international, and of these, 70% take place in those markets that are considered the most competitive: France, Portugal, Germany, Great Britain and the Czech Republic. Fagor, markets its products under seven different brand names including the following:
Fagor
Edesa
Aspes
Mastercook
Brandt
De Dietrich
Fagor Commercial
The purchase of the Brandt Group in 2005 ensured that Fagor became one of the largest appliance manufacturers in Europe. This also included the brand names of Ocean and De Dietrich.
Retail Pricing
As with most manufacturers entering the UK Fagor started out at the cheap end of the market with poor quality but cheap appliances. At the time this included cheap ovens and cookers, especially gas cookers which were riddled with problems, like no gas safety cut-off and exploding glass doors. Times change and today the products are much better than their predecessors but still Fagor struggles to cast off the “budget brand” stigma that is attached to it within the industry like many others in the same situation.
The recent purchase of the Brandt Group from Elco-Brandt (formerly just Elco), an Israeli company, included the upmarket French brand of De Dietrich which lies at the opposite end of the scale in terms of image.
Spares Pricing & Aftersales (UK Only)
Traditionally spares prices were pretty reasonable for Fagor products in the UK until the service contract changed earlier in 2006 to being handled by repaircare.net who now undertake all the Fagor Group service in the UK. Previously spares and service were handled by Anglo Iberian Service (AIS) based in Essex who were subsequently bought by Waterline Kitchens and then sold onto JTM Contracts in October of 2006.
Since the service has been handled by repaircare (this happened in 2005) there has been a considerable rise in most spares prices, until recently, the sole UK importer of spares was Connect Distribution in Birmingham of whom repaircare is a trading division.
These price increases, along with very limited technical information and little, if any, training has given the brands a bad image, especially the upmarket flagship De Dietrich brand as the appliances are technically complex and low volume.
