Hotpoint


The Hotpoint Electric Heating Company is an American and European brand of domestic appliances. Ownership of the brand is split between the American company Whirlpool, which has European rights, and Chinese company Haier along with American company KKR, which has North American rights since its purchase of GE Appliances.

History

Formation in California

Hotpoint was founded in 1911. The name of the company comes from the hot point of the revolutionary first electric iron of 1905, invented by the American Earl Richardson having formed his Pacific Electric Heating Company in Ontario, California, in 1906. It was known as the Hotpoint iron, with its hottest point at the front and not the center. In 1912, the company began making electric irons, and electric cookers in 1919 in the United States. Earl Richardson also invented the first iron that switched off automatically when a maximum temperature was reached.
It is claimed to have developed one of the earliest electric toasters in 1908, known as the El Tosto, and later, under GE, the Hotpoint brand name became one of the most popular brands of toaster in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. Richardson founded his own settlement, Adelanto, California, in 1915.
In 1918, the company, known as the Hotpoint Electric Heating Company from 1912, merged with the Heating Device Section of General Electric, becoming the Edison Electric Appliance Company, and later, just a division of GE in 1927, when it bought the factory and entire company. It became known as the Edison General Electric Company in 1931.
Most Hotpoint production moved to GE's mammoth Appliance Park manufacturing complex in Louisville, KY in the beginning of the 1950s. To this day, many Hotpoint appliances are made at Louisville, the largest appliance plant in the world.
In September 2014, Electrolux agreed to buy General Electric's household appliances business including the Hotpoint brand in North America for £2bn. The deal was expected to close in 2015. Due to blockage by U.S. regulators, the Electrolux deal was terminated, and GE subsequently sold its appliance division to Haier of China, to close in 2016.

United Kingdom

In 1920, it established a joint venture with competitor General Electric, forming the Hotpoint Electric Appliance Company Limited to market GE branded goods in the United Kingdom.

GEC

In 1929, HEAC joined the Associated Electrical Industries group and was bought by The General Electric Company in 1967. By the 1960s it was the market leader in household electrical appliances in the United Kingdom, followed by Sweden's Electrolux.
Hotpoint continued as a subsidiary of GEC until 1989, when it was merged into a new division of GEC called General Domestic Appliances, 50% of which was purchased by General Electric, with whom it owned the joint venture. In 1998, the Redring and Xpelair brands also joined GDA, and Hotpoint was categorized as part of GDA Applied Energy.

Indesit

GEC was restructered into Marconi plc, from which Indesit Company bought 50% of GDA on 21 December 2001 for £121m. At this point, Hotpoint employed around 7,000 people at its four sites in the United Kingdom, three of which later closed. Indesit UK has been based at Peterborough since 1 June 2003.
At the beginning of 2007, Indesit completely took over Hotpoint and merged it into its own historic brand Ariston, creating a single entity known as Hotpoint Ariston, Hotpoint now existing as a branding on European-made products.
In December 2008, Indesit Company acquired the final quota of shares from General Electric for US$57m. From the end of 2011, Indesit rolled out the Hotpoint brand name across Europe, replacing the names Ariston and Hotpoint Ariston. In October 2014, 56% of Indesit was purchased by
Whirlpool Corporation, and continues to use the Hotpoint brand name.

Products

Hotpoint was formed in 1911 in California and entered the British market in 1920. It is well known for its refrigerators and washing machines. The company, including sister brands Creda and Indesit, at one time produced the largest amount of kitchen appliances in the United Kingdom. The headquarters was in Woodston, Peterborough with about 1,500 people based there making refrigerators and freezers. The refrigerators plant closed in 2008.

Grenfell Tower fire

In June 2017, a Hotpoint FF175BP fridge freezer was found to have triggered the Grenfell Tower fire in London that killed 72 people. A total of 64,000 units of the same model were manufactured between 2006 and 2009 by Indesit under the Hotpoint brand before moving over to Whirlpool.
Customers who believed they own either the FF175BP or the FF175BG models have been advised to contact the company for further safety checks. According to the Hotpoint website: “We have been made aware that the recent fire at Grenfell Tower in West London may have originated in a Hotpoint branded fridge freezer, manufactured between March 2006 and July 2009, model numbers FF175BP and FF175BG ".

Manufacturing sites

The former Hotpoint plant in Yate that makes tumble dryers, is now the only plant in the United Kingdom still in production. Most machines are now made in Italy and Poland as opposed to the United Kingdom. Hotpoint washing machines were formerly manufactured at a plant in Llandudno Junction, in Conwy County Borough, North Wales, United Kingdom. The site made around 800,000 washing machines in 2007, with about 1,000 employees. It is now the North Wales base of the Senedd.
Their refrigeration products, formerly manufactured at the Peterborough factory, now are made in Poland. It has a distribution centre at Raunds.

Site closures

Indesit UK's Creda plant in Blythe Bridge, Stoke-on-Trent closed in December 2007. Closure of the manufacturing facilities at Peterborough followed in the end of 2008. On 31 July 2009, Indesit closed its plant at Kinmel Park, Bodelwyddan Denbighshire, Wales, United Kingdom.
The factory employed 305 workers. The company blamed "continuing decline" in the market.

United States

In the United States, Hotpoint branded products are made by GE Consumer & Industrial at Louisville, Kentucky.

Marketing

In 2002, it had a 23% share of the white goods market in the United Kingdom. The Holby City actress Lisa Faulkner starred in their 2010 Campaign for Cooking Confidence.
In 2009, it worked with Kelly Hoppen to produce its interior design Hot Style campaign. The company has also worked in conjunction with the P&G detergent brand Ariel. It currently recommends Excel Gel. Before 2004, Hotpoint recommended Persil Automatic & Comfort Fabric softener. In the past it has also advertised Bounce Tumble dryer sheets.
Actress Mary Tyler Moore appeared in a series of 1950s television commercials for the company as a character called "Happy Hotpoint", prior to her fame in television comedy series during the next two decades.

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