Czech china heads east for new markets
Cesky porcelan bets on Asian tastes for traditional Blue Onion
 | | Anna Linhartova prepares lithographs of Blue Onion at the Dubi ceramic works, which produces more than 300 kinds of Blue Onion porcelain. |
By Katya Zapletnyuk
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
Feb. 17, 2005
A Czech porcelain producer is setting its hopes on taking one of its product lines back to its roots -- China. A few years ago, it would have been hard not to find the classic cibulak, or Blue Onion, porcelain in Central European cupboards. But today, only four companies in the world produce Blue Onion. European demand has dropped, and Cesky porcelan, the only official Blue Onion producer in the Czech Republic, believes it can find a lucrative niche among rich Asians.
"There are rich people in China who believe buying Chinese porcelain to be low class," said Vladimir Feix, the general director and majority stakeholder of Cesky porcelan. "They understand that pattern. We want to market our porcelain to the wealthier layers of Chinese society, as a luxury product." Feix, who has been managing the company for 35 years, has started negotiations with the Chinese Embassy and is planning a trip to China in May. Economic and Commercial Counsellor of the People's Republic of China in the Czech Republic Liu Mingguo said that Czech-produced porcelain could appeal to those Chinese customers who are ready to pay a higher price for an exotic product from abroad.
"Competition in China is very high, and producion costs are lower [than in the Czech Republic], but it is important for the company to present its product on our market," Liu said, adding that Cesky porcelan may also find partners among Chinese porcelain producers.
The origin
The history of Blue Onion is closely related to the introduction of European porcelain production. It was first produced in the early 18th century at the prestigious Miessen porcelain manufacturer, in what was then the independent state of Saxony. The pattern, which uses Chinese underglazing painted with cobalt, is a reproduction of classic Oriential designs modified for European tastes. The Asian motifs of pomegranates, peaches and apples were erroneously referred to as onions. The pomegranate symbolizes fertility and healthy children.
Production of Blue Onion began in the northwest Bohemian town of Dubi in 1885, after the Unter Buschmuhle porcelain factory was taken over by a Meissen-based company. Today, the Dubi (by Teplice) ceramic works, which was privatized in 1992, produces more than 300 different items with the Blue Onion motif. It employs 310 people, predominantly women, and last year had sales of 150 million Kc ($6.4 million), according to the company's preliminary figures. However, those sales are a far cry from the 250 million Kc in turnover it had only seven years ago.
Blue Onion accounts for 50 percent of Cesky porcelan's production. The company also produces breakfast mugs that make up the other half of its business.
New markets
Since the very beginning, Austria and Germany were the main export markets for Dubi-produced Blue Onion, Feix said. "We never exported it to Russia," he said. "The only nations with a taste for this kind of porcelain are Germans and Austrians." The only other countries showing a strong desire are Asian nations "such as the Japanese and Koreans, who understand the symbols of the decor."
During the communist era, Austria accounted for as much as 30 percent of Cesky porcelan's exports. But that market was already shrinking by the late '80s, when the Viennese firm Thun-Hohenstein, the main distributor in Austria, went bankrupt, and sales in that country dropped dramatically.
Now Cesky porcelan exports a fraction of its total exports to Austria. While it sells half of its production domestically, a quarter of all exports go to Japan, up to 20 percent go to South Korea, and the rest is exported to West European countries, according to Feix, who attributes part of the decline in Europe to changing habits.
"People used to have dining rooms. Before, nobody bought tableware sets for two or four people. A regular set of china included table settings for 12 people," he said.
The decline in sales of high-end traditional porcelain is also the result of cheap imports from Asian countries, including China, according to Zdenek Liska, director of the Union of Industry and Transport of the Czech Republic.
Feix said that the markets are quite different in the East as opposed to the West. Among Europeans, Blue Onion is mainly favored by the middle classes; in Japan it is sold as a luxury item.
While domestic sales are down, the china is still considerd by many Czech families as belonging to tradition and family history, something handed down from one generation to another. "We honor cibulak no matter whether some people like or dislike it. This is our tradition," said Zdena Flegova, who received a Blue Onion set as a wedding present from her father 30 years ago. "We use the set at important family events without thinking whether it is a beautiful or not. It is our family asset."
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