bambu owners, Jeff & Rachel spend a lot of their time in China. It is the source of the natural materials for the bamboo products, cork bowls, bamboo plates and textile products bambu® creates. And home to the woodworkers and craftspeople who make our fine products. The team in China works from their development and production office in Shanghai.
Heading to the country
Much of the actual production of our products happens 4-6 hours by plane, train and car outside of Shanghai. While Shanghai is a bustling modern city, the rural areas that are home to our production team, and source of our material is rural, serene, and runs at a much slower pace.
Harvesting bamboo is still done by individual farmers who work designated plots of land. The moso bamboo that we use is harvested from wild crops in the nearby mountains with simple hand tools.
The 'culms' or stocks of bamboo are hand selected based on their maturity, usually harvested after only 3 to 5 years. The culms are transported to our nearby production center for cutting. Here's one of the bamboo cutters on our team.
We have a really great team! Spent almost a week in early November with everything. The same people that we have been working with for the last 14 years in some cases. Along with our QC team, we inspected the current production before it shipped out to our customers in Europe. We also checked on the recent arrival of fresh bamboo culms. It's the optimal time of year to be bringing in the bamboo.
We are part farmer
We're only half-joking when we say we're part farmers. We are tuned in to the growing cycles of the materials we use. Also keep an eye on weather patterns, and temperatures. When you're working with a natural material, a lot of factors come into play. People are often surprised to know that a simple bamboo spoon or any bamboo utensil may go through more than 20 hands before they get to your kitchen. There is a great deal of 'handmadeness' in the products we make.
The folks above are just a couple of the hands that go into making the products that we hope you enjoy.
