At the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago are recurrent theme was that people will be eating out less and cooking at home more.  The complement to this trend was the emphasis on kitchen applicances.

While overall sales on housewares may be down, there will be expenditures on those items that make things easier, add value and have quality.  These features complement the changes in household behavior. 

• Even though people will be cooking at home more, they will not want things that are complex, difficult or take a long time.  So products that are easy to use and produce great tasting  meals will be in demand.
• The products of choice will add capability for even the most novice chefs.  Products that are do the basics well but add features without complexity will selected over their chearper basic alternatives.
• If people are going to spend on kitchen appliances, they will want things that will last and are well made.

With these trends in the forefront of thier toughts, DeLonghi is expanding their presensce of its brand in kitcheware appliances by entering into new product catagories and expanding their product options in existing categories.  DeLonghi has had a strategy of high quality and exquisit Italian design for some time even though they are not that well know in the US.

Some of the catagories that are being added include food perparation, slow cooking and juice extraction and they are reentering the blender catagory where they have not had a presence for the last couple of years. 

One of the other new items for DeLoghi is the Gran Dama Avant touch-screen fully automatic espresso machine.  The Avant is capable of brewing espresso, but also of reproducing with a specific brewing method, American coffee.

Plus they have  four new toasters, four coffee grinders, two kettles, a two-tier indoor grill with smokehouse broil and sear and a toaster oven/panini oven.   These last two items come from the DeLonghi core products but have substantial feature enhancements.

The Indoor Grill and Smokless Broiler steakhouse style grill, which will retail at $149.95, will allow user to sear and broil meat to achieve steakhouse professional results, while the two tier feature enables simultaneous grilling of multiple types of food. 

Product feature include a non-stick, die cast grill plate with embedded heating element, professional draw, adjustable thermostat, 14 inch by 10 inch cooking surface, oil and greese drain cup, micor safety switch, on/off switch with indicator light, removable broiler drip tray, cord storage, recipe DVD and meat thermometer.

Watching how easy is was to use at the DeLonghi booth at the Internation Home Show and watching the people crowd around the get the result from the grill illustrated both the ease of use and the quality of the results.  And this was observed over and over again.

It is our expectation that we will have this available later this year at Your Smart Kitchen and at a good price.