A microcontroller is to blame for the fact that many customers have to wait between ten and eleven weeks for their Thermomix.

The orders for the kitchen appliance, which costs more than 1,300 euros, also increased significantly in the first four months of the year compared to the strong prior-year period.

"The lack of chips is a huge issue for us," said Thomas Rodemann, who has been responsible for the operational business of the Wuppertal-based family company Vorwerk since the beginning of the year, on Tuesday at the digitally held press conference to present the annual figures for the past financial year.

Jonas Jansen

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

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The procurement markets are still very tight, both in terms of availability and prices.

However, the ability to deliver could be maintained thanks to the good relationships with the suppliers - in addition, the development teams sometimes even came up with alternative components to keep the supply chains intact.

The lack of chips is also currently a factor for the vacuum cleaner business for the Kobold brand, although the lockdowns in China have a greater impact on the availability of goods.

The "goblin" surprises

After five years of declining sales, Vorwerk turned the corner in the vacuum cleaner business last year.

With a sales increase of 16.5 percent to 819 million euros, the division not only grew relatively, but also in absolute terms in the entire group.

In 2020, the division suffered even more from the lockdowns, especially in Italy, by far the largest sales market for vacuum cleaners.

The household appliances that Vorwerk has been selling for more than 90 years have also benefited from the fact that the family business has been able to significantly increase the number of its sales representatives.

As with the Thermomix, direct sales account for the majority of sales.

The kitchen appliance is by far the most important product in the group, with sales of 1.7 billion euros it now accounts for half of Vorwerk's total sales.

Only China is worrying Vorwerk, where sales fell by 40 percent last year.

Unlike in the other markets, Vorwerk does not sell the device there through direct sales and at parties in the customers' homes, but primarily in shopping centers.

The rigid corona policy has led to a significant reluctance to buy.

"Our hands are currently tied," said CEO Thomas Stoffmehl.

"But China is an important market for us and will remain so."

The consultants drive the sales

However, the other countries were able to more than compensate for the weakness.

Although sales had already risen significantly in the same period of the previous year because there were many customers who wanted to spend more money on their kitchen equipment due to a lack of vacation and going out opportunities, Vorwerk was able to increase sales of the Thermomix again by 7.1 percent in 2021.

This is mainly due to the fact that the number of consultants has increased by almost a quarter.

According to the annual report, Vorwerk also expects sales of the Thermomix to be at the previous year's level for 2022.

"One thing I know for sure, as long as we have continuous growth in consultants, we will also have growth in sales," said Thomas Stoffmehl, spokesman for the board.

"Even in times of crisis, the logic of our business model works."

For example, the first quarter of the current year was one of the best in the company's history, with a limited version of a black Thermomix device doing particularly well, of which 350,000 units were sold in a short space of time.

Vorwerk delivers around 1.5 million kitchen appliances every year.

The subscription business makes a not insignificant contribution to sales: customers buy a prescription platform with an annual subscription, and more than 3 million customers now spend 49 euros a year on it.

In the long term, however, Vorwerk is looking for a third pillar alongside the Kobold and the Thermomix.

Because after a failed craftsman product, Vorwerk is also phasing out the tea machine Teemial in the middle of the year, which has been sold since 2018.

"Now we've failed twice, but we're not giving up," said Rodemann.

There are still a few companies that could round off the range of household items.

The medium-sized financier AKF also belongs to the Vorwerk Group.

Vorwerk recently sold the cosmetics company Jafra and the building cleaner Hectas.