“We are strategically located in a region which is a center of broomcorn, the raw material for brooms,” says Managing Partner Matteo Niccolai. “My grandfather Piero Niccolai founded the company in the late 1960s with the idea of manufacturing a more modern version of the broom using plastic and selling it in the USA. In fact, the new broom made in Italy was immediately accepted in the USA, and the company rapidly grew with large-scale orders from the USA. Step-by-step we expanded the range of products to include brushes, floor cloths and accessories, and we kept innovating both the functionality and the design of the cleaning tools to make them more ergonomic and more effective and to ensure perfect results.”
Initially, Fass marketed the brooms and brushes in the USA exclusively under a private label. “After the collapse of the Twin Towers, there was a decline in the US market, and we created a brand for the large-scale distributors in Italy and Europe,” states Mr. Niccolai. “The strategic decision paid off, and we developed special brands for more sustainable products, less expensive products, new technology and new design to stand out from the competition by offering something different and a variety to meet each and every requirement.”
All the products are still genuine made-in-Italy quality. They all are manufactured at the company’s premises in Larciano. “We produce everything in-house, and we are the only one in Italy to do so,”underlines Mr. Niccolai. “So we have full control of the quality and can react quickly to changing requirements. We manufacture the brooms, the sticks and the handle, an added-value product as it can be plasticized and painted. Brooms and quality handles account for 75% of the business. In addition we mould products such as buckets, garbage bags, floor cleaning accessories for different surfaces such as super mop for parguet, dustpans for collecting dirt and brushes for all surfaces.”
Fass provides products for both interior and exterior applications with a variety of innovations such as brooms with a bumper including double injection to make it more durable and more comfortable or push brooms with rubber, a best seller in the USA, Northern Europe and Australia. The latest addition is the fixed swivel cap, a compound of the cap from a single piece that can be turned, an advantage extending the service life. The foldable dustpan with handle is another representative product which sells a million pieces a year just like the trendy triangular bucket.
Fass has a staff of 60, 42 of whom are active in production, and generates a turnover of 17.5 million EUR. 60% of the products are exported to the USA, the EU with a focus on Germany, Spain and Northern Europe, Asia and Australia. “We are looking forward to increasing the turnover by 5 to 10% this year,” concludes Mr. Niccolai. “Within the next four to five years, we want to push the turnover to 30 million EUR, and we are well prepared to do so. We will continue our successful strategy of ongoing investments in research and development with a close eye on market trends and the requirements of customers in order to provide quality products with a difference, innovative solutions for domestic cleaning tools.”