By Martin Vedris
SYDNEY: St George ovens has announced they were the only fully Australian designed and manufactured oven to be nominated for the 2008 Australian International Design Awards, which are noew open to overseas-designed products.
The annual Australian International Design Awards are a division of Standards Australia, which has allowed products overseas to be eligible for an award, if they are sold within Australia.
St George ovens is one of more than 600 design practitioners from around the world invited to submit their product, which is an individually hand-built oven range made in Sydney.
The St George brand was re-launched on September 19 last year, to coincide with the brand’s 60th anniversary, at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum after languishing for 10 years with the same old designs.
The brand itself was given a second chance after Woodland Home Products managing director, Peter Woodland, purchased the brand from Kleenmaid in 2004. Kleenmaid had purchased St George in the 1990s, but over time it had not developed the brand or the product range.
Woodland hired Australian designed Andrew Crick to rejuvenate the brand and the company reported that the brand achieved record sales in October last year.
Some of the key features of the St George Eco Safe ovens include Cool Touch Technology, which is a quadruple glazed oven door that retains heat inside the oven but maintains a cool exterior whilst cooking for safety.
The oven also has closed door grilling, for safety as well as reducing cooking odours.
It is also the largest oven in its class with a large 92 litre capacity top oven compared to the average European 58 to 65 litre oven.
It also has smooth running telescopic racks so that each shelf slides out so that the cooking can be viewed, returned, or served as required. Self-cleaning side panels with catalytic liners combined with a full-glass back door to make it easier to clean the oven.
This year’s Australian International Design Awards finalists will be announced on 25 March.