25 years of the Holst Porcelain brand

Picture: Traditionally made coup plate with a cobalt blue full-font underglaze and a hand-painted real gold decoration "Cologne Cathedral" with dedication of the porcelain factory Eschenbach for the anniversary 25 years Knud Holst Industrievertretungen CDH on 1th October 1980.

Dear customers, dear partners, dear ladies and gentlemen.

The Holst Porzellan/Germany brand celebrates the 25th anniversary on 1th October 2023. However, the roots began in the early 1990s, until I took the decision on 1th October 1998 to change the name of the former Knud Holst Industrievertretungen CDH (whose 25th anniversary we celebrated on 1th October 1980) into a porcelain brand with the profile "Schlicht & Stark" and an independent sales policy. Over the years, many (once) well-known producers have accompanied us on this path; Winterling, Eschenbach, Schwarzenbach, Kirchenlamitz, Bruchmühlbach, Weimarer, Coldiz, Lengsfeld, Tognana, Lilien- & Langenthal, Valentina, Gilitzer and Wallendorfer Porzellan.

When our imports from Asia replaced our piece numbers from Europe in 2000, I was called a "...traitor to the German porcelain industry..." by a business partner of the Hutschenreuther group. At that time, many of our moulds and articles were produced on the machines developed by Hutschenreuther itself and distributed abroad by Netsch.

At our first own stand at the Imega in Munich in 2000, the then Bauscher boss and also a long-time business partner berated me, "... I should be ashamed of selling foreign porcelain...". Today, there is virtually nothing left of this once proud German industry. The former industry leader Hutschenreuther AG (today bhs-Tabletop) has degraded itself to a trade mark of inferior Vitrous imports and the German Porcelain Road is now only referred to as the "Road of Death" by its residents. Even Tognana with its factories in Italy (Treviso & Bari) could not maintain its production operations and became an import brand. Thus the European porcelain story, full of fantasy, continued to run its course and burned many fortunes, visions and livelihoods in the current epoch as well.

That the young brand Holst Porzellan would live longer than Hutschenreuter, Arzberg, Goebel and Richard Ginori - no, I would never have thought it possible.

So we have survived all the crises in 25 years; the change in values in our society, the demographic reduction of the family, the disappearance of the dowry, Ikea, millions of tonnes of competitor porcelain, the AD 586 anti-dumping proceedings, the Corona lockdowns, the collapse of the supply chains and currently the war in Ukraine. If I add up all these "impacts" in terms of time, I arrive at more crisis years than good years in the 25 years of our brand. 

The turnover in FY 2022/2023 was the best in our company's history so far. Our variety of articles and our stocks have never been as large as they are today. For 25 years, 90 cents of every euro earned has gone back into our stability and further development. Our Mrs. Yvonne Nolte celebrates 20 years of Holst Porzellan on November 1st. Our Michelle Kloske has been managing the warehouse and logistics for 18 years. Our porcelain family may be small, but we are loyal, honest, hardworking, competent and human! Above all, I am proud of that.

In autumn 2023, Holst Porzellan will launch three new series and, for the first time in more than 20 years, a new, classic coffee house line on the German-speaking market.

We celebrated our 10th anniversary of Holst Porzellan in 2008 here in Halle/Westphalia with a total of three events. The majority of the then and long-standing top partners no longer exist; either the companies were liquidated, sold or went bankrupt. Once important personalities of our industry have retired, fled or passed away. That is why we are celebrating our anniversary in the small circle of our employees and porcelain family.

The so-called Stepstones, i.e. the important milestones of our beautiful porcelain brand, have been compiled for you here under the heading Chronicle. And for those who would like to find out more about us, we have the keyword About Holst Porcelain.

The Anniversary Sale 25 Years of Holst Porcelain

We have thought long and hard about what promotions to offer you for our anniversary. For almost 4 years now, you have only known price increases (not from us!), delivery bottlenecks and difficulties in the supply chains. What could inspire you and how can we let our customers and partners share in our joy? The answer was ultimately quite simple!

Holst Porzellan invites you to take a trip back to 1998. Every Friday, for a limited period of one week, we will put together a small but fine selection of articles from our range and offer them at the prices of that time! So it's worth taking a look every now and then until the end of the year to see what we have prepared for you. By the way, you will always find the selection on our homepage and not only here.

And if YOU -> US want to "give" something for the anniversary, then simply write us a comment, experiences or your own review of Holst Porzellan in this blog. If available, we also look forward to receiving current or old pictures, which we will then compile in a collection at the end of our anniversary year and publish if you agree. You would be doing us a favour!

Yours sincerely, Knud Holst
with the whole team of Holst Porcelain