I always compare it to test-driving a car. You don’t buy a car without test-driving it, and there are so many options to review when it comes to appliances. It’s a question of finding which one suits your style best, both in terms of your design style and in terms of your cooking style. An interior designer can help you come up with the best look and configuration for a kitchen, and then our team knows all the technical details to really make that kitchen work. The kitchen is so important, because it’s the room where you spend the most of your time when you’re awake — it’s the last room everyone ends up in at a party, it’s where the kids do their homework, and it’s where family discussion happens — so it matters to get it right.

It is evolving to our benefit in that more consumers are moving to the premium sector. For a while, people were okay to buy a product and replace it every three to five years. Now, consumers are demanding more sustainability from their brands. Especially during tougher economic times, when a product breaks down, people want to fix it, not replace it. Miele is the perfect brand for longevity because we build our own electronics, we test our products to last 20 years, and we control the complete ecosystem of our brand, so if anything does happen, we stock the parts and a Miele technician comes out to fix it. 

Looking to Canada specifically, people are moving towards black glass and away from handles — thought not as quickly as in other markets around the world. To a certain extent, they’re also demanding more colours when it comes to finish options — but that change is happening a little slower than the other ones.

I don’t want to reveal too many surprises, but I am very excited about our M-Sense system, where we push just enough energy into pots and pans that they never boil over. I have always had the problem of switching on the cooktop to make spaghetti, and then suddenly it’s boiling over — so how do we prevent that? This is made possible by sensors, which is really the next step of appliance designs.

That’s one of the biggest challenges, actually. The answer is that we think about it in terms of a couple different scenarios. On the one hand, I think of someone on a Wednesday, when their kids are coming back from school and they just need something ready in 15 minutes. That’s one scenario. But then you also might be inviting your friends over on a Saturday evening, and want to make filet mignon as a real passion project. An appliance needs to keep in mind these totally different use cases, and do a great job at both of them.

Ultimately, it’s about adding features that can make life easier for you if you’re not an expert cook. Our Smart Food ID is a camera in the oven that looks at your food, recommends the right settings and guides you through that process to cook rice or vegetables almost automatically. But you can also still set the oven to a specific temperature for exactly, say, 21 minutes. Design and user interface is very important in keeping the customer in mind in both cases. And I will say that we also invite everybody to come here, to our Miele Montreal Experience Centre, and experience cooking with a chef — because you get a lot of ideas about how to cook well and get better results that way, too.