"The Heart Of German Shoe Industry" Opened For The First Time.

Recently, the German century sandals brand Birkenstock (brink) first opened the production facility of the brand in Germany Bernstadt and G rlitz, revealing the famous brand leather cork cooling process.

The earliest history of Birkenstock can be traced back to 1774. It was founded by Johann Adam Birkenstock, a German Langen-Bergheim shoemaker.

In 1896, Konrad Birkenstock, a family descendant, opened two shoe stores in Frankfurt am Main and began making and selling comfortable insoles.

In 1902, Konrad Birkenstock developed the first streamlined foot arch to make insole.

In 1925, he bought a factory in Hesse, Germany. Then in 1945, his grandson Carl Birkenstock moved the company to Bad Honnef near Bonn, and then developed cork cores that could be inserted into the bottom of hard shoes flexibly.

Until 2013, Birkenstock was run by the Birkenstock family.

In the same year, the company changed its organizational structure and integrated 38 independent companies into the group company, which was divided into three major business departments, namely, production, sales and service.

The group is currently co CEO of Oliver Reichert and Markus Bensberg, responsible for day-to-day management.

"The heart of the German shoe industry"

Birkenstock has a 245 year old production plant located in a ranch, 3 hours away from Berlin, but only ten minutes walk from Poland. Jochen Gutzy, the brand communications director, introduced the factory again: "the first impression is that it is nothing."

At present, Birkenstock has two factories in Bernstadt and G o rlitz. In addition, there are two factories in Rhine, Sankt Katharinen, and Steinau in Hesse.

In addition, the brand shoe manufacturer in Portugal also operates a factory.

In 2018, a total of 16 thousand and 500 people engaged in footwear industry in Germany, of whom 4253 worked in Birkenstock, accounting for 25.8%.

Jochen Gutzy said: "(Germany) footwear industry 1/4 of people work in Birkenstock, half of them stay in Saxony.

It's not a big deal, but the heart of the German shoe industry. "

The production plant in Bernstadt was built in 1991. The space of 20 thousand square meters accommodates 600 employees, 450 of whom are responsible for production.

Since 2014, the number of employees in this factory has doubled.

The factory is mainly responsible for the production of shoe upper and insole. The daily output is 40 thousand pairs of insoles and 90 thousand pairs of upper.

Each year, the total amount of leather handled by Birkenstock is equal to the leather produced by 485 thousand cows.

In the production workshop of Birkenstock, workers do not manually rely on any high-tech machinery to make and cut leather.

Jochen Gutzy said: "although there are new technologies, we do not want to give up this process. As a natural product, each piece of leather is unique, and the machine can not distinguish its appearance like human eyes."

There are three materials for making Birkenstock classic shoes: ordinary leather, suede and microfiber.

The next step in trimming the lining is to print the Birkenstock's logo and shoe size on it.

Birkenstock also produces vamp in Benstadt's factory. The whole process of material processing is more complex. There are 7 processes: punching, numbering, embossing, sharpening, splicing, binding, and then being taken out by factory workers for final inspection.

The material ratio of Birkenstock shoe upper is 35% leather and 65% synthetic material.

Leather material handling is entirely artificial, and synthetic material processing will rely on machinery.

From beginning to end, 80 pairs of Birkenstock sandals are required to make a pair of sandals.

Since its launch in 1963, the design of Birkenstock's classic shoe Madrid has hardly changed.

Quality first

The principle of Birkenstock is very simple: practical, quality and form following functions. The most important feature of shoes is shoe soles.

Karl Birkenstock is one of the creators of the word "insole", explains Yvonne Piu, the brand's chief marketing officer.

Birkenstock's most famous insoles come from the largest factory in the G rlitz rlitz area, which was officially put into operation in 2007, occupying 30 thousand square feet, including 1150 production workers, employing a total of 1350 employees.

In addition to latex cork insoles, the factory also produces vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) shoes and polyurethane (PU) soles.

Every day, the factory processes 2700 kilograms of cork and 12 thousand litres of latex, making 80 thousand pairs of soles.

Birkenstock is the largest EVA manufacturer in Europe, producing 7 million 100 thousand pairs of EVA shoes a year.

Every pair of Birkenstock insoles should be tested by experts before leaving the factory.

Yvonne Piu pointed out: "there are two things we can't expect from us: one is that we will never fly to the moon, and the two is never compromise on quality."

Expansion strategy: market driven from production driven pformation

Birkenstock Klaus Baumann, chief sales officer, said: "Karl Birkenstock's sales strategy has always been very direct, products sold through the market or directly to the family.

But the market needs more information and speed related to distribution.

In 2015, Birkenstock formulated the goal of "production driven pformation oriented" company, that is to say, shift the focus of the company from production to marketing.

"Since then, we have witnessed tremendous growth in performance, with an average annual growth rate of 20% since 2014.

Over the past five years, the overall growth rate has reached 150%.

Ten years ago, our annual output was 5 million pairs of shoes, the current annual output is 30 million, "Klaus Baumann said.

To promote international growth, Birkenstock has set up offices in several regions in order to respond quickly to market sales and closer to the market, consumers and partners.

At present, Birkenstock products are available in 90 countries across five continents, 8 facilities in Germany, and sales offices in the United States, Brazil, mainland China, Hongkong, Japan, Denmark, Slovakia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Dubai.

Klaus Baumann said: "as family businesses, we choose a relatively conservative expansion plan, but retail is a very important channel -- all stores are profitable.

We are not going to open 100 stores in a country like high street brand. Our strategy is a marathon, not sprint.

"It is important for us to meet customer expectations through various market segments.

My mother doesn't care if she works with Valentino. She only wants a pair of comfortable shoes.

On the other hand, some of our customers are fashion opinion leaders. They want surprises.

That's why we launched a joint series with Valentino and Rick Owens respectively.