OUR STORY
GRUNWERG | PART OF A FAMILY
Grunwerg is a family business. Although generations of Grunwergs have been at the helm, our family culture extends to all our team members – many of whom have been with the business for over twenty years and have introduced their own family members to the Grunwerg team.
Established in 1945 our business was founded by Otto Grunwerg, a refugee from war-torn Vienna who developed links with local manufacturers to produce stainless steel products including knives and cutlery.
Laurel Works on Nursery Street was our home from the 1940’s until the late 80’s at which point we moved to the J & Riley Carr Building on Rockingham Street in Sheffield city centre, famous for its Pointer dog facade with the phrase ‘Stanch’ meaning steadfast in loyalty and principle.
Fast-forward to 2019 and loyalty along with steadfast principles are the benchmark to which we set all of our customer relationships. Our headquarters may have moved to state of the art facilities at Silversteel Manor in Sheepbridge, but our central Sheffield heritage will always be a part of us. This landmark year also saw us open a brand new London Showroom - Santoku on Great Portland Street to provide chef’s, trade buyers, and consumers a luxury setting in which to view our products.
Joining the company in 2010, Ben Grunwerg has taken the business forward from David and Charles Grunwerg to expand on their focus of importing quality products from Japan and the Far East and establishing a dedicated design team in our Head Office.
FORGED IN SHEFFIELD | BRITISH DESIGN
Grunwerg focuses on designing environmentally friendly products made to the highest of standards and built to last a lifetime. We still design our products with our UK based team focusing on the latest trends and styles whilst ensuring quality and value. Our products are made with plastic free packaging that is fully recyclable. New product development has an emphasis on quality and sustainability. Car charging points and state of the art facilities allow us to run an efficient and clean warehouse.
GRUNWERG | IN THE COMMUNITY
We are an active supporter of a range of good causes and always aim to be a responsible member of our local community. The management team and board choose a local charity to support every year and we also work to support many other charities. In addition to this we also partner with our industry charity, Hospitality Action, which aims to support colleagues within our industry that have fallen on hard times. For example, a portion of our sales through the national lockdown were donated as well as a portion of our sales from our customer event at Le Gavroche restaurant.
ROUX SCHOLARSHIP | SUPPORTING GENERATIONS OF CHEFS
With an association which has lasted nearly 40 years, we support the Roux Scholarship on an annual basis through our sponsorship and distribution of premium Global knifeproducts. Our support of this competition run by the Roux family creates career changing opportunities for some of the best young chefs in the UK. We understand the importance of being behind new generations of catering industry professionals.
OUR FACILITIES | MODERN AND EFFICIENT
Having moved out of the centre of Sheffield in 2019, we are situated in the wooded valley of Sheepbridge, in north Derbyshire. Our site features state of the art distribution facilities, renovated in 2018 to leading standards. With over 90,000 Sq ft. of warehouse space, our distribution facilities feature modern and clean equipment in order to provide our customers with efficient ordering and customer care.
Our offices are designed to inspire our product and graphic design teams. Featuring open plan desks for collaborative working, we run our product design, sales, marketing, logistics and accounting teams from our Head Office location in Sheepbridge.
2019 saw the opening of our flagship store SANTOKU, a premium central London location to showcase to the public our ranges of knives and cutlery. This contemporary and conveniently located showroom gives our customers the best experience of the products we have to offer.
