Photo by Donna Mueller
It’s been 10 years since ZWILLING J.A. HENCKELS moved into offices that it built on Marble Avenue in Pleasantville, and the match couldn’t have been better for the company or the community.
In November 2015, ZWILLING, with factories around the globe producing high-end cutlery, cookware and small kitchen appliances, celebrated the relocation of its U.S. headquarters from its previous home on Route 9A in Hawthorne. CEO Guido Weishaupt said the company had outgrown its space, and with so many of its employees living in the area, another site for a larger facility nearby was sought.
To the relief of village officials and many residents, they pursued the property that had been the site of the old Medical Laboratory Associates (MLA) parcel at 270 Marble Ave. Since MLA moved out in the late 1990s, the previous structure remained empty for almost 15 years. Stop & Shop had bought the land in 2001, but the plans to open a supermarket there were abandoned after it faced overwhelming community opposition.
ZWILLING bought the property in 2012 and built its sparkling energy-efficient headquarters of roughly 110,000 square feet that houses offices, a retail store that sells its products and a warehouse. One of the most popular features of the operation is the cooking studio that hosts culinary classes for those who love expanding their skills in the kitchen.
“There were a few options, but when we saw this one, it’s always been our favorite because the location is so close to town and the idea that everything is so walkable and the diversity of the offerings for the employees, from downtown shopping to food, so for us it’s the ideal location,” Weishaupt, who has been ZWILLING CEO since 2008, said of the move to Pleasantville.
It’s also been ideal for business for the 294-year-old German-based company, Weishaupt said. Since arriving in the village, he estimated that business has quadrupled, prompting ZWILLING to buy the nearby 1.2-acre property at 220 Marble Ave. with an eye toward future expansion. There are currently about 110 employees in Pleasantville.
There is no timetable for additional construction on the recently acquired land.
“We want to expand on that site,” Weishaupt said. “Again, we’re almost 300 years old, so we’re never in a rush. We always do what we do with longevity in mind. We want to be mindful of how we will use that space and how best to fit it into our operational needs, but also, as you can see, we like making the space look nice and we want to make sure that whatever we do on that site can match with what we do here.”
Long and Storied History
The largest and one of the oldest cutlery companies in the world, ZWILLING was founded by Peter Henckels in June 1731. His grandson, Johann Abramham Henckels, is its namesake. ZWILLING is the German word for twin, since the company debuted under the zodiac sign Gemini, and an image of the twins is prominently part of the company’s logo.
ZWILLING arrived in the United States in 1876, opening a shop on New York City’s Park Avenue, Weishaupt said. It’s first foray into Westchester came in the 1950s, first in Elmsford, then in a few additional locations farther north before establishing itself in Hawthorne, years before the move to Pleasantville.
What sets ZWILLING apart from other cutlery producers is the quality of the product, said Chief Sales Marketing Officer Joanna Rosenberg. They work with a European steel company to make a unique special formula steel that has been developed and perfected over the years. Rosenberg said the goal is always to achieve the right balance between durability and sharpness.
There is also robust quality control to ensure that the products will last. For example, to guard against the knives rusting, ZWILLING conducts extreme testing that is the equivalent of placing the knives in the ocean for two weeks, she said. Rosenberg said ZWILLING is able to have its own specially developed steel because the company is the largest knife manufacturer in the world. All of the machinery that makes the products at its eight factories worldwide – located in Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Japan, China and India – is calibrated to produce the highest quality products, which is its most crucial mission.
“The idea is that it will last for more than one generation, you’ll have them to pass on to the next, and our job, all of us who work here, our job is to protect the company for the next generation that comes along,” Rosenberg said. “It’s not a quarter or a year or anything like that. We do that with the quality of the product more than anything else.”
Over the generations, ZWILLING has added to its line of products by acquiring several other top brands. It offers STAUB cast iron and ceramic cookware from France; DEMEYERE, a prominent Belgian company that offers the best in stainless steel cookware; MIYABI, considered the best in Japanese cutlery; HENCKELS, which offers high quality, and durable cookware and tools at an exceptional value.
“I think what’s so great, because we have the five brands and we range from one price point all the way up, we can sort of give each customer what they need depending on what their skill set is, their comfort level is, said Jennifer Davis, ZWILLING’S vice president, marketing communications.
Weishaupt said to ensure that the quality of what it produces remains consistently high, ZWILLING controls the manufacturing process from beginning to end.
He said maybe only about 10 percent of the customer base is commercial, with many falling into the category of serious hobby chef.
“I think it’s really essential to everything we do, whether it’s cutlery or cookware or flatware, we just are addicted to the quality of what we provide,” Weishaupt said. “You wouldn’t survive 300 years in any industry if that wasn’t kind of the underlying principle.”
About 40 percent of the company’s market share is in North America with about 30 percent each in Europe and Asia, Weishaupt estimated.
Spreading the Joy of Cooking
Since ZWILLING moved to Pleasantville, one of the most popular features of its facility has been the development and introduction of the cooking studio programs. The ground-floor space just inside the main entrance started simply as a showroom, Weishaupt said. However, executives looked at the area and thought that it could become more interactive, he said.
ZWILLING hired an executive chef that had worked with the company in Europe who helped convert the showroom into a cooking studio. It is one of a few such studios ZWILLING operates at locations around the world.
“I would say this one is the most successful when it comes to the amount of people and the revenue generated,” Weishaupt said. “We’re looking, always looking to see if what we learned here we can multiply to other locations in the U.S. That’s one thing on our wish list that we haven’t gotten to yet, but it’s from what we perceive, it’s so good that it’s really worth copying and sharing and rolling it out.”
Nearly every day there is a different type of class offered at ZWILLING studio, ranging from a children’s baking session to a vast assortment of lessons introducing different cultural cuisines such as Asian street food, Korean BBQ, Moroccan food, Mexican and Filipino dishes and new American plates. Then there are the periodic basic knife skills classes.
With the popularity of televised cooking shows, more people are finding enjoyment in creating dishes at home, further fueled when many were homebound during the height of the pandemic. Almost anyone with the interest and desire to learn how to make exciting new dishes would love some of the classes scheduled at ZWILLING studio.
“Surprisingly, the end result of what you then eat or have created is so amazing that it doesn’t stand back much from, if at all, from anything you would buy at a good restaurant – and you just cooked it,” Weishaupt said.
The studio has also hosted corporate events and even a Bar Mitzvah party, Davis said.
Gift Ideas for the Holidays
For the friend or relative who is a budding chef or finds enjoyment in trying new dishes to make, the gift of a class or choosing items from ZWILLING on-site retail store makes for a great gift for the holidays. If you’re uncertain over which gift from the store or class someone on your shopping list might find most appealing, gift cards are available for both.
ZWILLING also holds its annual warehouse sale at the start of the holiday season – the weekend before and the weekend after Thanksgiving on the grounds of its property, Davis said. This year, the sale is on November 21-23 and December 5-7 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on each of those days.
In past years, shoppers have come from throughout the lower Hudson Valley, New York City, New Jersey and Connecticut to see what glassware, flatware, tools, gadgets and other items are available.
“If you bring a passionate hobby chef into the store, it’s really like a kid in a candy store,” Weishaupt said. “There’s no stopping. Everything is so good.”
Community Fixture
Development of the property a decade ago came as welcome relief to the Village of Pleasantville. Mayor Peter Scherer said ZWILLING took what had been a moribund site and transformed it with its attractive public-facing building. With the retail store and the cooking studio, it is more than just a warehouse and distribution site.
It has also been a major part of what could be considered a renaissance for Marble Avenue, a largely light industrial corridor with mixed uses that has at times had a difficult zoning history. It has had a positive influence on a few other streets in the vicinity, most notably Castleton Street, Scherer said.
He is also optimistic that when the time comes, ZWILLING will redevelop 220 Marble Ave. with equally aesthetically pleasing construction.
“They have been good neighbors for sure, absolutely for sure,” Scherer said. “They have been forthcoming and generous and obviously invested a lot of money in that building that needed significant investment. It’s been great.”
In turn, ZWILLING takes seriously its mission to give back to the community, Weishaupt said. One program that it created is to provide work to members of the special needs community by easing them into the workforce to show what the world of employment can look like. Since moving to Pleasantville, Weishaupt estimates that between two and three dozen people have been trained and became a core part of the company.
“That’s something we couldn’t do at our old location, but being here in Pleasantville, in a community, allows us to reach out to the school to offer this sort of a program, which is great,” Davis noted.
A second effort has been its internship program for general education students who are typically attending college.
“We want to make sure young people have the opportunity to get an idea of what work life can look like while they’re still in college and make the right choices,” Weishaupt added.
When ZWILLING decides to expand, Weishaupt pledged that whatever structure gets built will blend in well with the surrounding area, particularly from an architectural perspective, he said.
With the company’s success in Pleasantville, the roots that have been planted in the community will continue to grow. Weishaupt recognized the importance of the relationship between the village and the company’s success locally.
“Pleasantville has treated us really well,” Weishaupt said. “We have the proximity to the train station, the restaurants, and just being a part of a community where before where we were on Route 9A was pretty much in the middle of nowhere,” Weishaupt said. “So, it’s a complete step up in so many ways for the employees coming here from the Bronx and all over, the nearby cities.”
For more about ZWILLING J.A. HENCKELS and its products, visit www.zwilling.com. Information about the cooking studio, including the schedule of classes, can be found at zwillingcookingstudio.com
