Chicco, has its origins in post war Italy and a humble bicycle. Today, Chicco is the largest single baby products brand in the World.

When Catelli was 17, he took a job working for a small Swiss manufacturer of thermometers and syringes.

Catelli served in the Italian army during World War II and returned to the Como region in 1946. One of Catelli's older sisters had died during the war, and Catelli was able to take out a mortgage on her house, raising ITL 500,000 in order to start his own business, which he called Artsana. Catelli used his networking experience in pharmaceutical sales to import thermometers from Eastern Germany. At that time, thermometers, like most other goods, were scarce in Italy and being high quality – commanded a higher than average price .

Catelli started out his new career with only a bicycle. Riding from town to town – the thermometers in a backpack. Soon, however, his sales volume had risen sufficiently to allow him to buy a scooter.

The start of the Cold War cut off Catelli's thermometer supply. He decided to launch his own production operations, opening his first manufacturing plant in the Como region. Catelli focused on bringing quality product innovations to Italy. He became one of the first in Italy to begin developing so-called painless hypodermic needles. He also recognized the importance of design in sales; his thermometers featured distinctive blue-coloured mercury – meaning the product stood out among rival brands.

Catelli married in the mid-1950s, and his wife joined him in building the business, which rapidly expanded its range of medical and health products through the 1950s. The company also expanded its production capacity, adding the first of a series of new factories in Italy's Lombardi region.

The Chicco Name

The Catellis' first child, Enrico, was born in 1958. Catelli gave his son the nickname Chicco, the name of a pharmacist he had met while making sales calls on bicycle years before. The birth of his first child provided Catelli with the inspiration for the launch of the company's second main product category. The company began developing its own range of strollers, cots, cradles, and other childcare products and named the new division Chicco.

The Chicco brand caught on quickly in Italy, where it soon became nearly synonymous with the children's market. The Chicco line continued to grow, later becoming a well-known brand of toys and games.

Over the coming years, the company expanded the Chicco product range and successive generations of new parents have relied on its consistent quality and the promise to be “wherever there’s a baby”.

Chicco-Artsana is still a family owned company.

Today, the group sales are measured in several billions – more importantly an R&D budget of several hundred million annually ensures that Chicco can continue to bring the latest innovations in baby products to the our market.

www.chicco.com.au