JKR

Le Creuset

Germany is famed for its cars, Switzerland its watches and France its food. So, as the home of cooking, it’s only right that France should also be home to the world’s most famous cookware company. Like other national, flagship brands, Le Creuset is built on substance; cast iron and enamel, to be precise.

Those two ingredients have been the foundation from which the brand has grown, and the lesson it teaches us is to hold your course. The cast iron gives Le Creuset an unmistakable weight, and although it has expanded into lighter products in recent times, the brand remains reassuringly hefty at its core. Plenty of wannabe competitors might look the part, but they never feel it.

A porcelain enamel exterior also provided the brand with a great opportunity for visual distinction, and it’s one that Le Creuset has wholeheartedly exploited. By being so bold as to choose Volcanic orange at the outset, and then by showing it such faith over the years, Le Creuset truly owned that colour. The DNA became so strong that, more recently, it’s been able to grow a family of different shades that definitely still pass the paternity test.

All of which makes any aspiring chef believe that they will be a little bit better for using it. As the advertising famously said: ‘Every good cook should know a little French: Le Creuset.’

By James Joice, Client Services Director, jkr. For the full article, see this week's copy of Marketing magazine.