Miele to open Northern Experience Centre

Appliance manufacturer Miele plans to open its third Experience Centre in Manchester, in 2012, which will be its first in the North of England.

Miele has bought a piece of land in Cheadle Royal, Manchester, to create an Experience Centre of 2,000 sqm, which aims to attract more than 10,000 visitors a year.

CEO of Miele UK, Simon Grantham said: “The catchment area we have planned on is almost from the bottom of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the top of Birmingham. It’s within a two-hour catchment area of Manchester. All the research that we’ve done says that customers will travel up to two hours to research their appliances and have a cooking event.”

The Experience Centre will be staffed by 14 employees and is expected to become the flagship of its interactive stores.

Simon Grantham commented: “We will have learned each time we open a new one about how to take it to the next level. So there will be a lot more cooking events [in Manchester], which we know our customers like…We will be using professional chefs and creating a partnership with cookery schools.”

Simon Grantham spoke of the move into the North of England: “Certainly the research we’ve done shows there’s as much potential in the North East and North West of the UK as there is in the South. Miele is very strong in the South, less in the North, so it provides a good opportunity for us.”

The company opened its first Experience Centre in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, for customers and trade partners in 2005, which provides hand-on cooking experiences.

It plays host to around 9,000 customers a year, looking at products and being trained on appliances, as well as participating in cooking courses.

Following its success, the company went on to open the Miele Gallery in London’s Wigmore Street
at the end of 2009, which has had nearly 6,000 visitors in the first year of opening.