By Peter Giannetti
Recent news that Food52 was acquiring Dansk probably caught more than few industry observers by surprise.
Perhaps it was no surprise that Centre Lane Partners, the new private-equity owner of a Lenox business in transition, spun off a Dansk cookware and tableware brand that still holds solid brand equity despite a clear need for a revival.
What may surprise many is the name of the company taking on the Dansk revival. While Food52, after a remarkable 11-year rise, has now proven itself a worthy player in the housewares M&A game, it likely wasn’t among the first several companies you would have predicted to land Dansk.
Maybe you shouldn’t be so surprised.
When food editors Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs launched Food52 as an online food community and recipe exchange, few had a glimpse into their ambitious vision for the platform, which posted its first profitable year in 2020.
With a plan to update and expand the 69-year-old Danish-designed brand, Food52 is said to be scouting additional acquisition targets.
I recall the CEO of a housewares company predicting four years ago that as the wave of celebrity chef brands receded, digital influencers would rise into the next surge of influential home and housewares brands.
Since then, digital platforms with vast, highly engaged and highly trackable followings such as Tasty and Delish have added their names to ranges of housewares offered beyond their respective websites to the shelves of mainstream housewares retailers. Expect more to come.
Food52 in 2018 launched its own Five Two housewares brand, described then by the platform as the “first ever community-driven line for kitchen, home and life.”
It remains to be seen how Food52 will move to wholsesale Five Two, Dansk and other brands it might subsequently develop or acquire, although it did start in 2020 by introducing Five Two to Nordstrom. The plan for now would seem to be about building out its own differentiated e-commerce domain filled with an expanding selection of brands. However, it’s not a stretch to imagine a day when Food52 shops pop up in big-box retail stores, as with Sephora shops in Kohl’s and Ulta Beauty shops in Target.
It’s enough to make one wonder who the home and housewares industry will be buzzing about a decade from now that didn’t exist a decade earlier. Just don’t be so surprised.
