Company Profile

Vogel Import Export NV

Vogel Import Export NV has been known as a leading European company in commercializing and distributing wooden broom and tool handles. With sales of more than 35 million handles a year, the company could be regarded as the major European importer of wooden handles.
Vogel, who was the instigator of wooden handle production in Brazil still concentrates on Latin American Countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay) for which they organise the production and commercialisation. Besides Latin America, Vogel is also managing production of handles in Africa, Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia) and in some East-European countries.
Vogel can offer a wide range of handles, produced in various wood species ranging from pine (Pinus Elliotis, Pinus Taeda, Radiata Pine) and eucalypthus to hardwood handles (Tauari, Marupa, Virola, Guatambu, Garapa, Cedrinho, Cambara, Indonesian and Malaysian hardwoods,...) and European beech and oak.
Vogel can provide all kinds of accessories to be mounted on the handles: threads (plastic & aluminun), hanging caps, handles with drilling, konus/taper, labels, lacquer, etc...
Vogel offers its customers a total solution by organising logistics, shipping, insurance and financing. The commercial office and logistics department provide the customers with a door-todoor
service.
Being an expert in handles, Vogel provides you with an update on the current market situation of wooden handles:
We start with the market situation in Brazil as it is still the major producer of wooden handles. The biggest issue faced again this year was the fact that the Brazilian currency gained further against the USDollar. As Brazilian exporters are paid in local currency (automatically converted), it created a loss for them of more then 15%. Brazilian suppliers suffered from this seemingly unstoppable revaluation, resulting in suppliers now offering in Euro. Price increases were and are necessary and some export markets could not timely absorb these price increases demanded by the Brazilian suppliers. Both customers and suppliers were and are both having hard times, causing some suppliers to close down already.
Combined with a more difficult supply of raw materials, due to intensified controls by the Brazilian Government on illegal logging, it creates a lot of unstability in the market.
Argentinian and Paraguyan suppliers followed the same trend as in Brazil. Being faced with cost increases (labour, raw material, utilities) price increases were also pushed into the market.
Today the situation has still not stabilised & South American suppliers are very careful in accepting new contracts. Long term contracts are not accepted for the moment.
Malaysian suppliers of Ramin handles had received some good news again from the European Union as the EU decided to (partly) lift the ban on the import of Ramin into the EU. Ramin imports have now again been started up but has caused some buyers to shift to other woodspecies in the mean time. Brazilian Marupa is regarded as a good alternative but is currently very limited in supply. Also for Ramin exporters, uncertainty about exchange rates affected price levels.
Looking closer at home, manufacturers of handles in ash for garden tools were and still are also confronted with shortages of supply resulting in fast rising prices.
In short, throughout the world, suppliers and customers were faced with price increases.
Unavailability of raw materials and the weakening US Dollar being the major causes. Prudence is necessary for long term contracts.

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