Hygena
Encyclopedia
Hygena is a brand
of fitted kitchen, originally from the United Kingdom
. Started in Liverpool
in 1925 to make Hoosier cabinet
s, it was bought by new investors in 1938, who after the war built modular kitchens for the new British post-war temporary prefab houses
. With the introduction of design concepts based on the Frankfurt kitchen
and new materials such as formica
, Hygena became the dominant brand in kitchens from the 1960s through the 1970s. But mass manufacture and a change in styles meant that it ended up as an economy brand in the UK, bought out in the 1980s by MFI Group. As its parent faced financial difficulties in 2000s, they sold the European rights to Nobia
, who on MFI's bankruptcy bought the global brand rights. Nobia continue to successfully sell the brand in France
today. The brand has now been relaunched in the uk through Homebase and Argos stores
by George Nunn and Len Cooklin, to make a variety of the then popular Hoosier cabinet
s. As the Hoosier dwindled in popularity, so did the company's sales, resulting in the company's going bankrupt in 1938.
Bought up by new investors, it made produce for the Ministry of War
during World War II
. Returning to civilian production, it became involved with the design and manufacture of kitchens for post-war temporary prefab houses
. The Ministry of Works
had specified a set of design conformance instructions, while the majority of manufacturers were using former war-time scale facilities, which resulted in a preference for factory-based mass manufacture.
Approached by Arthur Webb and George Nunn, Fejer was key in the creation the UK style of fitted kitchen, based on the principles of the Frankfurt kitchen
. The design team realised that the post-War austerity period was over, and the 1950s kitchen needed to be bright, colourful and modern, influenced from contemporary American
ideals of domesticity and good living. Pre-war English Rose kitchens had been the living ideal, but with wood in short supply, Aluminium became the material of choice. This promoted a clean fresh image, which helped to also announce a new beginning post-War. Worksurfaces were most often created in Formica
, which available in a series of colours all with wipe-clean surfaces, reduced the amount of labour needed to prepare food. 1950s kitchens also often incorporated rounded shelves at the end of the units providing extra storage and a useful location for the bakelite radio
.
With much British manufacturing production still managed through standards defined by the MoW in the form of the newly launched British Standard, the first new Hygena kitchen range of the 1950s was the BU, available in cream or cream and green. But the mid-1950s F range was the companies first fully prefabricated kitchen, combining wall units with sliding doors, built-in sinks and larders with clear plastic storage bins. But the key to the F range was the accessibility of its style at a cheap price, with the most popular of the huge colour range choice being red tops, blue doors and white draws. In 1958 the company was joined by Alan Marshall, MSIA, as Chief Designer and Kitchen Planner. (Marshall's brother was Eric Marshall, FSIA, founder of Eric Marshall Associates.) Marshall had worked with George Fejer at Fejer's design Studio at Murray Road, Wimbledon, S.W.19 in the earlier 1950s. At Fejer's suggestion, Arthur Webb and George Nunn invited Marshall to move to Liverpool to join them at their Kirkby factory, and henceforward he was largely responsible for their design and planning work.
At this time fitted kitchens were still beyond many people's price range, and builders still did not incorporate one into their new build houses. However, the 1960s changed that, with Hygena and Allied Iron Foundries in their Leisure Lineline range introducing the wider use of Formica. Until this point, kitchens were either made of metal, and hence polished, or wood and hence needed to be painted. The introduction of formica meant that no longer was there a need to paint or repaint your "new" kitchen, just use it. Secondly, formica was easy clean, and although most new houses incorporated a serving hatch between kitchen and dining room, more and more families were adopting to the American kitchen diner concept.
Resultantly, fitted kitchens became the trend in 1960s UK, requiring a ramp-up in production scale. Noticing the success of the Swedish firm IKEA
and their flat pack furniture, Hygena appealed to the DIY market in 1970 with Marshall's design for their first kitchen flat pack, launched in 1971. Sold under Marshall's suggested acronym QA (Quick Assembly), this rapidly became Hygena's best-selling and most widely advertised line. By this time Hygena had been taken over by the Norcros Group and John Standen appointed Managing Director upon Arthur Webb's retirement.
MFI expanded through acquisition, bringing British flat-pack concepts to other European countries. But its expansion proved unprofitable, and as a company listed on the London Stock Exchange
, from 1999 it was continually faced with a series of calls from investors to revitalise itself, often followed by a series of profit warnings. Resultantly in 2006, it sold the successful Hygena operations in France and the rest of Europe to Swedish
kitchen retailer Nobia
for SEK
1,255 million (EUR 135 million). The sale included the 138 wholly owned stores in its French network, the Lille
headquarters of MFI's mainland European operations, and use of the Hygena brand within Europe excluding the UK.
In 2000, MFI announced a concession
with DSG International plc, allowing the development of the sub-brand Hygena at Currys within DSG's Currys
electrical retail stores.
The furniture products sold were identical to those of MFI, however rebranded to distinguish the two companies, and usually sold at a vastly discounted price to offset competition from Howden Joinery and MFI itself. Currys benefited and made profit from appliance sales associated with the sale of a kitchen, and increased product knowledge from specialist staff. There were 130+ concessions found in Currys stores throughout the UK.
But the concession suffered from particularly poor publicity, with funds used entirely for MFI's own advertising and the refusal of DSG to include the brand in their own Currys campaigns. Therefore Hygena at Currys relied almost entirely on word of mouth marketing
.
On 10 May 2005 it was decided by mutual agreement to end the partnership, with the final stores closing in October 2005. Every Currys store that had previously contained 'Hygena at Currys' showroom underwent a substantial refit as part of the Kestrel Refit Programme, at the cost of MFI (rumoured in excess of £5m), to restore the floorspace to its previous state.
, itself then bought out by Sainsbury's Homebase. Homebase quickly dropped the brand, and integrated the design concepts into their own-brand range of kitchens. The global brand rights were later sold to Nobia.
Today, Hygena has been relaunched in the UK with it's products selling at Argos.
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
of fitted kitchen, originally from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Started in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
in 1925 to make Hoosier cabinet
Hoosier cabinet
A Hoosier cabinet is a type of cupboard popular in the first decades of the 20th century. Named after the Hoosier Manufacturing Co. of New Castle, Indiana, they were also made by several other companies, most also located in Indiana....
s, it was bought by new investors in 1938, who after the war built modular kitchens for the new British post-war temporary prefab houses
British post-war temporary prefab houses
British post-war temporary prefab houses were the major part of the delivery plan envisaged by war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing Act 1944, to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II housing shortage.Taking the details of the public...
. With the introduction of design concepts based on the Frankfurt kitchen
Frankfurt kitchen
The Frankfurt kitchen was a milestone in domestic architecture, considered the fore-runner of modern fitted kitchens, for it realised for the first time a kitchen built after a unified concept, designed to enable efficient work and to be built at low cost...
and new materials such as formica
Formica
Formica is a genus of ants of the family Formicidae, commonly known as wood ants, mound ants, or field ants. Formica is the type genus of the Formicidae, and of the subfamily Formicinae...
, Hygena became the dominant brand in kitchens from the 1960s through the 1970s. But mass manufacture and a change in styles meant that it ended up as an economy brand in the UK, bought out in the 1980s by MFI Group. As its parent faced financial difficulties in 2000s, they sold the European rights to Nobia
Nobia
Nobia AB is a Swedish corporation owning many European kitchen related firms. It syles itself as The Leading Kitchen Company in Europe....
, who on MFI's bankruptcy bought the global brand rights. Nobia continue to successfully sell the brand in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
today. The brand has now been relaunched in the uk through Homebase and Argos stores
Foundation
The Hygena Cabinet Co. Ltd was established in 1925 in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
by George Nunn and Len Cooklin, to make a variety of the then popular Hoosier cabinet
Hoosier cabinet
A Hoosier cabinet is a type of cupboard popular in the first decades of the 20th century. Named after the Hoosier Manufacturing Co. of New Castle, Indiana, they were also made by several other companies, most also located in Indiana....
s. As the Hoosier dwindled in popularity, so did the company's sales, resulting in the company's going bankrupt in 1938.
Bought up by new investors, it made produce for the Ministry of War
Ministry of War
A Ministry of War or Ministry for War is an administrative, supply and services agency of an army, as opposed to the entire military establishment. Both Mexico and Brazil both still maintain a War Department for the support of their armies...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Returning to civilian production, it became involved with the design and manufacture of kitchens for post-war temporary prefab houses
British post-war temporary prefab houses
British post-war temporary prefab houses were the major part of the delivery plan envisaged by war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing Act 1944, to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II housing shortage.Taking the details of the public...
. The Ministry of Works
Ministry of Works
The Ministry of Works was a department of the UK Government formed in 1943, during World War II, to organise the requisitioning of property for wartime use. After the war, the Ministry retained responsibility for Government building projects....
had specified a set of design conformance instructions, while the majority of manufacturers were using former war-time scale facilities, which resulted in a preference for factory-based mass manufacture.
1950s-1970s
In 1943, the London-based Selection Engineering Company Ltd had appointed Hungarian emigre George Fejer as an industrial designer, who on a part-time basis helped out with their modular kitchen design. After completing construction of over 29,000 Uni-Seco prefab houses, by 1950 Fejer was looking for a new opportunity.Approached by Arthur Webb and George Nunn, Fejer was key in the creation the UK style of fitted kitchen, based on the principles of the Frankfurt kitchen
Frankfurt kitchen
The Frankfurt kitchen was a milestone in domestic architecture, considered the fore-runner of modern fitted kitchens, for it realised for the first time a kitchen built after a unified concept, designed to enable efficient work and to be built at low cost...
. The design team realised that the post-War austerity period was over, and the 1950s kitchen needed to be bright, colourful and modern, influenced from contemporary American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ideals of domesticity and good living. Pre-war English Rose kitchens had been the living ideal, but with wood in short supply, Aluminium became the material of choice. This promoted a clean fresh image, which helped to also announce a new beginning post-War. Worksurfaces were most often created in Formica
Formica
Formica is a genus of ants of the family Formicidae, commonly known as wood ants, mound ants, or field ants. Formica is the type genus of the Formicidae, and of the subfamily Formicinae...
, which available in a series of colours all with wipe-clean surfaces, reduced the amount of labour needed to prepare food. 1950s kitchens also often incorporated rounded shelves at the end of the units providing extra storage and a useful location for the bakelite radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
.
With much British manufacturing production still managed through standards defined by the MoW in the form of the newly launched British Standard, the first new Hygena kitchen range of the 1950s was the BU, available in cream or cream and green. But the mid-1950s F range was the companies first fully prefabricated kitchen, combining wall units with sliding doors, built-in sinks and larders with clear plastic storage bins. But the key to the F range was the accessibility of its style at a cheap price, with the most popular of the huge colour range choice being red tops, blue doors and white draws. In 1958 the company was joined by Alan Marshall, MSIA, as Chief Designer and Kitchen Planner. (Marshall's brother was Eric Marshall, FSIA, founder of Eric Marshall Associates.) Marshall had worked with George Fejer at Fejer's design Studio at Murray Road, Wimbledon, S.W.19 in the earlier 1950s. At Fejer's suggestion, Arthur Webb and George Nunn invited Marshall to move to Liverpool to join them at their Kirkby factory, and henceforward he was largely responsible for their design and planning work.
At this time fitted kitchens were still beyond many people's price range, and builders still did not incorporate one into their new build houses. However, the 1960s changed that, with Hygena and Allied Iron Foundries in their Leisure Lineline range introducing the wider use of Formica. Until this point, kitchens were either made of metal, and hence polished, or wood and hence needed to be painted. The introduction of formica meant that no longer was there a need to paint or repaint your "new" kitchen, just use it. Secondly, formica was easy clean, and although most new houses incorporated a serving hatch between kitchen and dining room, more and more families were adopting to the American kitchen diner concept.
Resultantly, fitted kitchens became the trend in 1960s UK, requiring a ramp-up in production scale. Noticing the success of the Swedish firm IKEA
IKEA
IKEA is a privately held, international home products company that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture such as beds and desks, appliances and home accessories. The company is the world's largest furniture retailer...
and their flat pack furniture, Hygena appealed to the DIY market in 1970 with Marshall's design for their first kitchen flat pack, launched in 1971. Sold under Marshall's suggested acronym QA (Quick Assembly), this rapidly became Hygena's best-selling and most widely advertised line. By this time Hygena had been taken over by the Norcros Group and John Standen appointed Managing Director upon Arthur Webb's retirement.
MFI Group
By the 1970s, Hygena had established itself as the leader in the fitted kitchen market, making itself vulnerable to attack from others, and changes in style. While the clean lines of its 1950s designs were popular post-War, the late 1970s saw the return of the bespoke country kitchen styles to the kitchen, which were unsuited to Hygena's design style and manufacture methods. In an attempt to survive, Standen considered diversifying: Marshall produced modular designs for kitchens, bedroom furniture and garden sheds, but his designs were regarded as too 'futuristic', and Norcros looked to dissolve the company and sell the Hygena name.Taken over by MFI Group in the early 1980s, it sat alongside MFI other well known household brands as the economy choice.MFI expanded through acquisition, bringing British flat-pack concepts to other European countries. But its expansion proved unprofitable, and as a company listed on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
, from 1999 it was continually faced with a series of calls from investors to revitalise itself, often followed by a series of profit warnings. Resultantly in 2006, it sold the successful Hygena operations in France and the rest of Europe to Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
kitchen retailer Nobia
Nobia
Nobia AB is a Swedish corporation owning many European kitchen related firms. It syles itself as The Leading Kitchen Company in Europe....
for SEK
SEK
SEK may stand for:*Swedish krona, the currency of Sweden*Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches *SEK Studio, a North Korean animation studio* Stagecoach in East Kent...
1,255 million (EUR 135 million). The sale included the 138 wholly owned stores in its French network, the Lille
Lille
Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...
headquarters of MFI's mainland European operations, and use of the Hygena brand within Europe excluding the UK.
Hygena at Currys
Concession (contract)
A concession is a business operated under a contract or license associated with a degree of exclusivity in business within a certain geographical area. For example, sports arenas or public parks may have concession stands. Many department stores contain numerous concessions operated by other...
with DSG International plc, allowing the development of the sub-brand Hygena at Currys within DSG's Currys
Currys
Currys is an electrical retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland and is owned by Dixons Retail plc. It specialises in selling home electronics and household appliances, with 295 superstores and 73 high street stores...
electrical retail stores.
The furniture products sold were identical to those of MFI, however rebranded to distinguish the two companies, and usually sold at a vastly discounted price to offset competition from Howden Joinery and MFI itself. Currys benefited and made profit from appliance sales associated with the sale of a kitchen, and increased product knowledge from specialist staff. There were 130+ concessions found in Currys stores throughout the UK.
But the concession suffered from particularly poor publicity, with funds used entirely for MFI's own advertising and the refusal of DSG to include the brand in their own Currys campaigns. Therefore Hygena at Currys relied almost entirely on word of mouth marketing
Word of mouth
Word of mouth, or viva voce, is the passing of information from person to person by oral communication. Storytelling is the oldest form of word-of-mouth communication where one person tells others of something, whether a real event or something made up. Oral tradition is cultural material and...
.
On 10 May 2005 it was decided by mutual agreement to end the partnership, with the final stores closing in October 2005. Every Currys store that had previously contained 'Hygena at Currys' showroom underwent a substantial refit as part of the Kestrel Refit Programme, at the cost of MFI (rumoured in excess of £5m), to restore the floorspace to its previous state.
Present
After MFI went bust in 2008, the Hygena brand was bought by Texas HomecareTexas Homecare
Texas Homecare was a chain of DIY stores in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, that operated from 1972 until 1999.-History:Texas Homecare was established in 1972 by Manny, Sydney and Gerald Fogel, who had previously founded the high street specialist paint and wallpaper chain Home Charm...
, itself then bought out by Sainsbury's Homebase. Homebase quickly dropped the brand, and integrated the design concepts into their own-brand range of kitchens. The global brand rights were later sold to Nobia.
Today, Hygena has been relaunched in the UK with it's products selling at Argos.