In 1925 our founder, Toshio Okada, began wholesaling sewing needles and other sewing requisites. And in 1945, hoping to provide products of better quality to customers, we decided to manufacture our own products rather than selling the products of other companies and established a fully equipped in-house factory. As our product lines increased to include not only sewing but also knitting and handicraft items, a larger space was required, so we expanded and moved our factory to its current location in 1959. In order to respond to customers' requests immediately, we operate our business using process and quality management systems based on the "quality first" concept over our entire range of products.
In addition to in-house production, we decided to apply the "Clover" brand to all our products to foster a sense of trust among our customers by providing consistent quality and service. The Clover brand represents our desire to develop and manufacture easy-to-use tools based on the "quality first" concept, and to provide them to many people so that we can help them to enjoy handicrafts. In Japan, from early in our long history, the Clover brand has been recognized as a symbol of high quality.
Quality, easy-to-use tools are indispensable for the full enjoyment of handicrafts. However, the tools alone are not enough, so we must convey how enjoyable and fulfilling handicrafts are through advertising and sales promotion to broaden the fan base. To achieve this, we have published trade magazines for retail stores over many years and advertised in women's magazines. We are striving to expand the base of "handicrafters", especially by encouraging magazine publishers and handicraft schools to communicate and teach the pleasure of making things by hand.
The development of new types of handicrafts and new products expands the market. Along with commitment to quality, our mission as a manufacturer is to propose new types of handicrafts and provide handy and easy-to-use new products. We are constantly striving to create new products based not only on the feedback from clients received through our customer service contacts, but also on market research and the inspiration of our staff. Staff engaged in new product development account for almost 20% of total employees. We do everything in-house from coming up with ideas to getting them into shape, and from finalizing drawings and making prototypes to the finished products. We think that Clover is the only company in the world that still maintains this kind of system for building quality into the products at the planning and design stages.
We find that preferences and trends in handicrafts vary little from one country to another. Of course, there are slight differences in the level of penetration for particular products, but preferences among people enjoying handicrafts seem very similar. Therefore, we firmly believe that we should recommend handicrafts that are well accepted in one country to people in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, however, because of the language barrier, we cannot make all of the Clover products universally available. Thus, from around 4000 items, we have carefully selected 500 items suited to the European market and prepared product packages in four languages. In particular, we have selected popular items from the sewing/patchwork and knitting needle lines. Of course, we have added new products every year to introduce new types of handicrafts.
