Italy’s Minnelli Group, a veteran designer and producer of custom wood-based components and materials, is exhibiting at The Inspired Home Show for the first time this year to launch an expanded U.S. housewares initiative.
Minelli Group, based in Zogno, Italy (near Bergamo), was founded in 1937 and has grown into an international industrial company, with manufacturing operations in Italy and in the United States, including a facility in Hickory, North Carolina.
The company, rooted in precision wooden firearm stocks, launched its homeware and kitchenware business in the late 1980s to produce custom wooden components for leading European knife manufacturers. Since then, Minelli has expanded its home and kitchen appliances to include cutting boards, knife blocks, serving trays, assembled multi-material products and selected finished goods.
“The U.S. is not simply an export market for us; it is one of the strategic growth axes of the group,” said Edoardo Cavagnetto, director of sales and business development for the Minelli Group Homeware & Kitchenware unit.
In the following interview with HomePage News Editor-in-Chief Peter Giannetti, Cavagnetto details Minelli’s U.S. home and kitchen strategy, including its plan for The Inspired Home Show 2026, March 10-12 in Chicago:
HomePage News: What is Minelli’s strategic position in the home and kitchenware marketplace. What distinguishes it from other products and brands? What is its price positioning?
Edoardo Cavagnetto: Minelli’s position is distinctive because we combine design capability with industrial manufacturing depth.
Minelli’s value lies in the integration of design, engineering and manufacturing. We do not only industrialize other companies’ ideas; we also develop original product concepts with a recognizable Minelli language, then bring them to production with precision and consistency.
This combination of creative direction and industrial discipline is what makes us different in the market. We work with authentic materials, especially wood, but we also know how to combine wood with other materials in a way that is both refined and industrially reliable.
Our positioning is premium, in a concrete sense: premium materials, premium engineering and premium execution. We operate in the upper-mid to premium segment, with a focus on products that deliver design value and manufacturing integrity at the same time. pricing reflects the level of engineering, customization and production quality invovled.
HPN: What are the plans for the Minelli brand for home and kitchen in the United States? What range of products are you planning for the U.S. expansion?
EC: Our participation in The Inspired Home Show marks an important step in how we are entering the U.S. home and kitchen market.
Historically, Minelli has grown through a direct, custom-development model. We have always worked closely with customers to design and manufacture products for them, rather than selling from an off-the-shelf catalog.
Now, we are adding a new layer to that model. For The Inspired Home Show 2026, we are introducing our first Minelli-designed signature collection, titled “I’m Possible.” It is not just a product launch; it is a design and industrial platform that expresses our style, our material culture, and our manufacturing approach.
The collection includes a small group of finished products for home and kitchen (a modular multi-material cutting board suitcase system; a customizable BBQ Bag inspired by an archer’s quiver; a premium BBQ tools set; a modular tray system, a refined cutlery rest). They are all developed to show how Minelli thinks: practical, refined, and engineered from the beginning for real production. The same design language can be adapted to different wood species, metals, finishes and price points without compromising structural integrity or production efficiency.
What is changing now is not our identity, but the way we present it to the market. With our new signature collection, we are giving the U.S. market a clearer and more immediate expression of what Minelli can do — not only as a manufacturer, but as a product partner with its own design point of view. Our signature collection is important because it expresses both sides of Minelli: our ability to design with a clear identity, and our ability to transform that identity into products that are ready for industrial production, adaptation, and distribution.
That is the essence of our U.S. plan: not only custom development, and not only a branded collection, but a hybrid model that combines both, an open platform for collaboration, where design meets engineering discipline. We want to inspire brands, retailers and wholesalers with a concrete expression of what we can create — while also opening a platform for bespoke development and future collaboration.
HPN: How have you managed U.S. distribution?
EC: Since the establishment of Minelli USA LLC in Hickory, North Carolina, in 2015, our U.S. model has primarily been direct and integrated rather than distributor-led.
This reflects who we are. For many years, our business has been built on bespoke industrial partnerships, not catalog sales. We typically co-develop and manufacture products with customers, rather than offering standard off-the-shelf collections.
From the beginning, technical and commercial development has been managed in close coordination with our Italian headquarters, while logistics, production capabilities and operational support have been handled locally by Minelli USA. This dual structure allows us to combine Italian engineering expertise with on-the-ground U.S. responsiveness.
For Homeware & Kitchenware, we plan to continue this approach. We can work directly from Italy for strategic product development and co-engineering, while leveraging Minelli USA for logistics, finishing and potential production activities.
At the same time, we are building a more open commercial structure in the U.S., including selective collaboration with experienced industry professionals and market connectors who can help us accelerate growth and expand relationships with OEMs, wholesalers and retailers interested in developing and manufacturing bespoke products through Minelli Group and Minelli USA.
HPN: How does your experience in wood components and firearm stock manufacturing relate to the U.S. opportunity for home and kitchen products?
EC: Our heritage in high-precision wood components manufacturing — including sporting firearm stocks — has strongly shaped our industrial culture. That experience taught us a very demanding production discipline: dimensional precision, structural performance, finishing quality, and repeatability at scale. These capabilities are directly relevant in home and kitchen, where products must be beautiful, but also durable, ergonomic, and consistent over time.
For us, the connection is very natural. It is the same industrial mindset applied to a different category, with the same attention to quality, performance, and reliability.
HPN: Where are the kitchen products produced, and are there plans to manufacture such products in North Carolina?
EC: Today, design, engineering, prototyping and early production are led from Italy, where our Home & Kitchen development capabilities are rooted. At the same time, Minelli’s industrial footprint is increasingly transatlantic. Our facilities in Italy and our plant in Hickory, North Carolina, share compatible technologies and manufacturing know-how, which gives us flexibility to adapt production based on customer needs, volumes, logistics and market strategy.
We have invested steadily in North Carolina over the last ten years, and we see the U.S. as a long-term manufacturing platform for Minelli Group. Home and kitchen are a natural part of that evolution, and we expect our U.S. role in this category to grow over time.
HPN: What type of U.S. sales organization are you building?
EC: We are building a commercial structure that reflects our broader hybrid model. This means maintaining direct strategic engagement from Minelli for key relationships and product development, supported operationally by Minelli USA, while also expanding our local commercial presence in the U.S.
We are particularly interested in building relationships with people who know this industry deeply and can help connect Minelli’s design and manufacturing platform with the right partners in the American market.
Our ambition is to build a structure that can support both bespoke industrial partnerships and the development of Minelli’s own product presence in North America.
HPN: What are you expecting from your participation in The Inspired Home Show?
EC: We see The Inspired Home Show as the right place to introduce Minelli Home & Kitchen to the U.S. market in a more complete way.
We are not attending simply to present products. We are there to present a vision: a new kind of partner for home and kitchen, combining design capability, engineering discipline and industrial execution across a transatlantic platform.
We also see the show as an opportunity to begin the right conversations — with brands and retailers looking for a serious development and manufacturing partner, and with experienced professionals in the industry who may connect with our project and help shape its next phase in the U.S.
Our objective is not only visibility. It is to build the foundations for long-term growth.
HPN: What are other relevant considerations about Minelli and its U.S. housewares strategy?
EC: One of the most important things to understand about Minelli today is that we are increasingly a transatlantic company. Over the last decade, we have invested significantly in North Carolina, expanded our U.S. operations and brought many American professionals into the Group across multiple business units. As a result, Minelli increasingly “speaks American” — not only commercially, but also operationally and culturally.
We believe this makes us especially well-positioned for the next phase of growth in home and kitchen. In this category, the real opportunity is not only to make well, but to create well — and then scale that quality consistently. That is where Minelli feels especially relevant today.
