IHA’s Derek Miller’s letter to the industry

Looking ahead to 2022, Derek Miller, president of The International Housewares Association (IHA) addresses the global housewares industry with this letter:

Dear Home + Housewares industry executive

The Inspired Home Show opens on March 5 with the halls once again filled with new products and innovations. It will be the opportunity for the home + housewares community to come together for product discovery and networking, two activities sorely missed over the past 18 months.

With five months before opening, space sales for The Inspired Home Show are currently at 82% of space sold for the pre-pandemic 2020 Show numbers and include more than 240 new exhibitors. Exhibitors are enthusiastic about getting back to business as is the retail community. Retailers across the country and around the world tell us that digital product discovery is challenging at best and finding new and innovative products is extremely difficult – they see the Show as the most efficient and effective method and best opportunity to explore and engage with the industry.

3- chicago N Ware stand — Above: The Nordic Ware stand at the Show in 2019.

The Show will once again feature a vast variety of home + housewares products in five Expos – Dine + Design in the South Hall, Discover Design and Clean + Contain in the North Hall, Wired + Well in the Lakeside Center and International Sourcing on Level 1 of the North Hall.

McCormick Place is already getting ready for our arrival having installed the latest air filtering technology and having implemented hospital grade sanitation throughout the buildings. In fact, McCormick Place has received a GBAC Star certification, the highest award a building can receive for sanitation specifically related to disease prevention.

Above: The award-winning Jars exhibition stand at the Show in 2019.

Additionally, to ensure a safe gathering, the International Housewares Association has commissioned a study by Epistemix, a health and safety advisory firm to prepare an in-depth study on The Inspired Home Show and McCormick Place. Once complete, the study will provide the IHA Board of Directors, your peers and IHA Staff with the solid data, backed by science, needed to properly assess and implement important safety measures throughout the McCormick Place campus.

When you arrive at the Show, you’ll see many changes since we last came together. The Inspired Home Show branding, a project started back in 2018, will finally be revealed – the new branding features lifestyle imagery to help focus our industry’s creativity on the consumer. The Pantone Colour Watch display returns this year in a new location in the Grand Concourse near the main entrance to the South Building. The New Products and gia Global Innovation Award Display as well as the Discover Design Display, now located at the entrance to the North Building, have also been completely reimagined to provide an inspiring home for product discovery. And we haven’t forgotten about the Lakeside Centre Lobby, which will be filled with new Smart Home and Inventor’s Corner exhibits along with several other displays focused on innovation.

Above: Dreamfarm’s Cate McDermott at the Show in 2019. (Photo: Progressive Housewares)

In addition to the Show, the IHA Board of Directors and Staff have been hard at work to ensure that the Association creates value-added programs that strongly support the industry by:

Facilitating Connections through strong CORE groups and CHESS conference
Providing Education through Connect SPRING, FALL, GLOBAL and DIGITAL
Creating Tools for product discovery through Connect 365 and COMMERCE
Facilitating Buyer Meetings through Connect GROCERY and other Retail programs
Developing an Industry News Program through HomePage News

In total, thousands of connections have been made over the past 18 months, and those digital offerings will continue into 2022 as a strong complement to The Inspired Home Show, which will once again become the home for the home + housewares industry.