Breville
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| Subsidiary | |
| Founded | 1932 |
| Headquarters | Melbourne, Australia, Australia |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
| Owner |
Breville Group (Australia) |
| Website | www |
Breville is an Australian manufacturer and marketer of small home appliances, founded in Melbourne in 1932. They created the original sandwich toaster. The product was a huge success upon its launch in Australia in 1974, selling 400,000 units in its first year and making the Breville brand a household name in Australia. Soon after, the Breville toasted sandwich maker was launched in New Zealand and Great Britain where it met with similar success. The name became synonymous with such devices - to the point where in some countries "Breville" has become the generic word for a sandwich toaster, and often the toasted sandwich itself, in much the same way that "The Hoover Company" is associated with the vacuum cleaner.
In 1932, Bill O'Brien and Harry Norville (born Charles Henry Norville) mixed their last names together and the Breville brand was created. They started off making radios, then mine detectors for the war.
After World War II and the commencement of television transmission in Australia in 1956, Breville turned its attention to small appliances.
It also commenced manufacturing television sets under the Precedent brand name. The television business was sold to Electronic Industries Limited in 1968.
The O'Brien family continued developing the Breville business for three generations, with Bill's son John O'Brien setting up the Breville Research and Development centre in the late 1960s, and his daughter Barbara, running the Marketing department throughout the 1990s. John continued to lead many product development initiatives for the Breville brand up until his death in December 2003. Breville's product development division is one of Australia's largest industrial design centres, and one of the largest worldwide in the small electrical appliance sector. Breville's R&D team has over 100 active patents and has been awarded more than 40 international design awards. In 1974, it completed development of the toastie maker. In 1977, Breville launched Australia's first food processor, the Breville Kitchen Wizz. Other firsts include the world's first high wall heating electric wok, the adjustable height sandwich press, the active arm citrus press, the world's first juice extractor to juice whole fruit, and in 2010, the Tea Maker, a variable temperature kettle with a self-lowering basket that brews tea automatically. Breville's Centre of Design Excellence is now located in Botany in Sydney.
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Wikipedia