Schuller Kitchen factory visit shows the quality on offer

As promised, here is a short post about last week’s visit to the Schuller kitchen factory in Herrieden, Germany.

Wow! What an impressive company Schuller is. Not only is it owned outright and run by one family. It is also a fantastic facility that is so much more than just a furniture factory.

The factory site covers a 200,000 square meter area. In a rather environmentally friendly twist, it uses its own power station. This is fuelled by the waste generated by the factory itself. Apparently this saves 2.5 million litres of oil per year, that’s not bad going! As if that wasn’t sensible enough, the wise business heads at Schuller sell back any excess energy to the national grid.

We were well looked after by Schuller representatives. In fact I would have to say we were completely spoilt. There was also plenty of opportunity to network with other UK based designers. We were all on a mission to find out everything the Schuller kitchen factory has to offer.

Unfortunately I was unable to photograph any of the production line because of the top secret nature of the operation. However, I can tell you that all aspects of the day to day factory operation are kept “in house”. That means if a machine on the production line fails for any reason, the engineer is on site ready to get everything running smoothly again. This kind readiness is what get’s your kitchen constructed and delivered to you so quickly. This ethos extends to a team of mechanics on hand at all times to maintain and service the delivery lorries. German efficiency at its best.

I’m making this all sound rather automated and impersonal. The truth is that much of the Schuller furniture is still hand made the old fashioned way. This includes all of the aluminium edging on the worktops. I also discovered that all of the lacquered doors are sprayed in house by a combination of machine and human specialists.

Every cabinet, plinth, worktop, door and handle are cleaned and polished before being inspected by the quality control team. All aspects of the order are checked before sending them onto the lorries for customer delivery.

Schuller Gala in champagne lacquered high gloss, notice the curved edges and worktops

Schuller Glassline in white matt glass, with red open shelving

I just want to say again what a fantastic trip this was and how impressed I was with the Schuller kitchen factory. Watching a construction line that produces 95,000 kitchens each year was a real privilege. This has been a hugely inspirational experience that will influence my future designs. My passion has now grown for a product that I have always believed to be one of the best on the market today.

Of course, it was great to get home again. I missed my two children and my husband. Of course I also missed my own Schuller Lima and Gala kitchen that I have now owned for nearly four years.

I have been allowed to video some areas of my visit and I have now added it to my YouTube channel.

Schuller Gala Truffle lacquered high gloss showing glass splash back with “bean” design