Playmobil and Legos made in Europe

Interesting article in the New York Times about some vindication for these two beloved toy companies. Playmobil is based in Bavaria, and withstood a lot of pressure to move their factories to China:


FRANKFURT, Sept. 17 — Playmobil of Germany has long promoted its colorful plastic pirates, firefighters and farm animals as better-than-your-average plaything — toys to be handed down rather than chewed up. Now it can add another selling point: they are made in Europe, not China.
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Hans Rudolf Oeser for The New York Times

Attila Britting building models at Brandstätter in Bavaria. The company, maker of Playmobil toys, has passed on a move to China.

The same goes for Lego, the Danish maker of toy bricks, and for Ravensburger, a German puzzle and game manufacturer, though it does produce small quantities of nonpaper toys in Chinese factories.

With Mattel and the American toy industry reeling from recalls of millions of Chinese-made toys, most because of lead paint, some of Europe’s best-known toy makers find themselves in the fortuitous position of having bucked an industrywide trend of moving production to China.

“Looking back, it feels like it was right to make that decision,” said Andrea Schauer, managing director of Geobra Brandstätter, which makes Playmobil toys. “At the level of quality we need,” she said, “we didn’t have enough manpower to inspect factories in China.”


The rest of the article is here...