Buy European

Over the last weeks I went through 600+ brands that get recommended as "European alternatives" and tried to verify where their products are actually made — factory pages, press visits, certifications. Some things genuinely surprised me:

1. Birkenstock really is made in Germany — over 95%. Their largest production site is in Görlitz, Saxony, and they're expanding it. (source)

2. Every single Nespresso capsule sold worldwide is made in Switzerland. All of them — roasted, ground and sealed in one of three Swiss factories. (source)

3. The Norwegian outdoor brands mostly don't produce in Norway — but they built their own factories in the Baltics. Norrøna runs its own factory in Lithuania, Devold makes over 90% of its wool clothing at its Lithuanian plant, and Aclima knits its merino in Estonia. Still EU, still their own factories — but not what the marketing photos imply. (Norrøna, Devold, Aclima)

4. About 85% of Beyerdynamic headphones are still handmade in Heilbronn, Germany. In an industry that moved to Asia decades ago. (source)

5. Salomon opened a fully automated sneaker factory in the French Alps to build shoes 100% in France. Automation is what makes European sneaker production viable again. (source) (Scope correction in the EDIT below.)

6. The canvas sneakers you'd guess are the most "outsourced" product are the opposite: Novesta has run the same Slovak factory since 1939. (source)

The pattern I keep seeing: "European brand" and "made in Europe" are completely different claims. The ones that really produce here are usually loud about the specific factory — the vague ones ("designed in…", "European quality") usually aren't.

And the flip side, which felt just as important: some famous "European" names didn't hold up. ~~The SIGG bottle is no longer made in Switzerland;~~ the Berkel slicer — an Italian icon — is now built in India under a "design made in Italy" line; Teufel is designed in Berlin but produced in China. I put those on a public "not listed" page with the reason for each, because quietly leaving them out felt dishonest.

Disclosure: this is my own project — I put all 628 verified brands with their sources into a free directory, browle.com, EN/DE/FR, no ads, ~~no tracking~~ and since this thread: no third-party code on a normal page view. The "not listed" page is there too. Corrections very welcome — the evidence link is on every entry.

EDIT (26 July): I wrote in the correction comment that I'd leave the original text standing. With a third correction now in, that stops being honesty and starts being a post that's wrong in three places, so the corrections are in the body itself: wrong lines struck through, nothing deleted.

1. "No tracking" was wrong. The site's own code never had trackers, but the newsletter form was a beehiiv embed that loaded Google Tag Manager and other third-party scripts inside its iframe on every page. Since 25 July the form loads only if you click it; a normal page view runs no third-party code. Details in the comment linked above.

2. The SIGG line was wrong. They still run their own factory in Frauenfeld and mark the Swiss-made bottles with a red Swiss cross; other lines come from outside suppliers. "Check for the cross", not "no longer made in Switzerland".

3. Salomon needed scoping. The French factory is real, but it builds select models; most of the range is still made in Asia. The directory entry now says so plainly.

All three came from commenters here. The count in the disclosure was 628 when I posted; it's 631 today, and three of those are tips from this thread.