Traditional toys braced for Christmas boom in Europe

Nov 29, 2007, 6:31 GMT

Brussels - Six-year-old Lucas has a 'Power Rangers' video game, a few robots and lots of teddy bears.

But the toy he likes best is a wooden train set made by Brio, a 123-year-old manufacturer based in Sweden.

'I like to see the train go round and round the tracks that I have made. You can't transform robots into anything else. But with the train it's different every time,' says Lucas, who was born in Italy but now lives in Denmark.

The recent recall of millions of hazardous toys made in China has alarmed parents across the world.

But it has also highlighted an ongoing shift by affluent European consumers towards more traditional playthings made with natural products.

And while Toy Industries of Europe, a Brussels-based lobby, says that there is little evidence to suggest that imports of cheap toys from Asia have been affected by the scare, manufacturers and retailers of old-fashioned train-sets and dolls' houses are rubbing their hands in anticipation ahead of Christmas.

'We are very optimistic about our Christmas sales,' says Graziano Grazini, the managing director of Citta del Sole (Sun City), an expanding Italian franchise that specializes in traditional, environmentally-friendly toys.

The first Citta del Sole shop was opened by entrepreneur Carlo Basso in Milan in 1972. Today, there are about 50 such shops across Italy - 20 having opened since 2000 alone, doubling the franchise's overall turnover in the process.

Basso still personally selects the toys and games sold by Citta del Sole shops.

This Christmas' best-sellers will be time-honoured favourites: dolls' houses, rocking horses, the Brio train-set and 'a colourful nest with lots of things for children to touch and play with', Grazini says.

Meanwhile, in downtown Copenhagen, employees at Pif-Paf-Puf are in a similarly buoyant mood.

'Our most popular product this year is a wooden kitchen set that costs 240 dollars,' says Tamara Johansen, whose shop, like Citta del Sole, also specialises in wooden toys for children of up to eight years of age.

'The first thing our customers ask us these days is whether the toy is environmentally friendly. And they don't mind paying a little bit more as long as the product is of good quality,' Johansen adds.

The impact of the Chinese toys scare on consumers is clearly evident at Pif-Paf-Puf, where sales of their Made in China dolls on whose face children can apply make-up have plummeted.

These dolls used to retail for 149 kroner (19.99 euros, 29.73 dollars), but they are now on sale for just half that sum.

'Nobody wants them any more,' Johansen notes.

Johansen concedes that the shop caters primarily for wealthy Danes.

Pif-Paf-Puf is located in Copenhagen's trendy Ostebro, the same neighbourhood in which Lucas lives.

One of the proud owners of the shop's 240-dollar kitchen set, which is manufactured by Schlingl of Germany, is Lotte Mejlhede, a news anchor at Danish broadcaster TV2.

Mejlhede bought the kitchen for her two-year-old daughter Laura Louise.

'I wanted something that is solid, that doesn't break easily and that looks good in our living room. Laura Louise has had it for over a year now and it is definitely her favourite toy,' Mejlhede says.

Other popular toys in the Mejlhede household include wooden fruits and vegetables made by Haba, another leading toy manufacturer from Germany.

At 2 euros each, they don't come cheap.

But with standards of living and environmental awareness rising steadily across Europe, the likes of Haba, Brio and Denmark's Krea are all looking forward to consolidate their sales.

Brio, for instance, is expanding rapidly in relatively new markets such as Italy and Spain.

Haba, which like Brio emphasises the safety aspects of its products, has doubled its sales since 2001 and says that in light of the recent Chinese scare, its 'Made in Germany' label will 'not hurt' its business in the upcoming Christmas season.

The European Union has been stepping up its efforts to protect consumers since US manufacturer Mattel was forced to recall millions of Chinese-made toys found to be containing lead.

And Meglena Kuneva, the EU commissioner in charge of consumer affairs, now says China has made 'considerable progress' in the area of toy safety.

China still makes an estimated 80 per cent of the world's toys and its share of the global market is not expected to drop significantly.

But as EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson noted during a recent visit to Beijing: 'A reputation can be built up step by step. But it can be destroyed in a moment.'

In the end, experts say that the world market is large enough to accommodate both the increasingly popular flashy electronic toys made in China and traditional wooden toys from old Europe.

Just as in that famous 1995 film, Toy Story, Woody and Buzz Lightyear can remain the best of friends.