Five international retailers were named gia global honourees during a dinner at the Radisson Blu hotel in Chicago.
The gia program was created by the International Housewares Association (IHA) and International Home + Housewares Show to promote and support innovation in home and housewares retailing worldwide. Since its launch in 2000, there have been 350 gia retail winners.
This year’s winners include Lakehouse from Canada, Denmark’s Illums Bolighus, K’OOK from the Netherlands, Lords in the UK and Malaysia’s Kitchen Shop. In addition, the Martin M Pegler Award for excellence in visual merchandising was given to Karaca Home of Turkey and the gia Digital Commerce Award for excellence in online retailing was awarded to Cooking The Kitchen Company from Spain.
Besides the five retailers, 12 housewares suppliers were also awarded for excellence in product design including Eva Solo for its window birdfeeder, Prepara for the adjustable oil pourer and Smith’s Consumer Products for its plastic compact digital scale.
Chosen from more than 500 products, IHA president and CEO Phil Brandl says the winning products are great examples of excellence in design.
“Congratulations to these winners of the IHA Global Innovation Award for product design; they are excellent representatives of the cutting-edge innovation and creativity that is driving the housewares industry today,” he explains.
“Our world renowned gia program is the ultimate awards event in the industry, honouring excellence in both housewares retail and product design.”
For more information and a list of all the winners visit www.housewares.org
By Marion Gerritsen
