Simplehuman is a privately owned designer and manufacturer of kitchen, bath, and beauty tools based in

Torrance, California Torrance is a city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the m ...

. Simplehuman's trash cans, touch-free soap pumps, shower caddies, and magnified sensor-activated vanity mirrors are sold across the US and internationally both on its website and at various

brick-and-mortar Brick and mortar (also bricks and mortar or B&M) refers to a physical presence of an organization or business in a building or other structure. The term ''brick-and-mortar business'' is often used to refer to a company that possesses or leases r ...

retail chains such as

Bed Bath & Beyond Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. is an American chain of domestic merchandise retail stores. The chain operates many stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. Bed Bath & Beyond was founded in 1971. It is counted among the Fortune 5 ...

The Container Store The Container Store Group, Inc. is an American specialty retail chain company that operates The Container Store, which offers storage and organization products, and custom closets. The company has made ''Fortunes list of " 100 Best Companie ...

Crate & Barrel Euromarket Designs Inc., doing business as Crate & Barrel (stylized as Crate&Barrel), is an international furniture and home décor retail store headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. They employ 8200 employees across over 100 stores in the Uni ...

, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus.

History

In 2000, Simplehuman was founded by Frank Yang, who immigrated to the United States from

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

in 1982 and later started the company with the idea of making a better trash can. He showed his design and received his first orders at the

International Home and Housewares Show The International Home + Housewares Show staged every year since 1906, is organized by the International Housewares Association (IHA). It is the center of the IHA's yearly activities. In 2008, the Show covered of exhibit space. It is one of top 2 ...

from retailers such as

and

. The company was originally called Canworks due to its focus on trash cans, but Yang changed the name to Simplehuman in 2001 when the company began to broaden its product line into other kitchen and bath tools, under the tagline “Tools for Efficient Living”. In 2003, Simplehuman opened a UK subsidiary in

Oxfordshire, England Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

to serve the European market. Simplehuman introduced its sensor soap pump in 2007. In 2010, it came out with the first of its line of motion-sensor-activated trash cans. In 2013, the company took this sensor technology into the beauty tools market with the introduction of its first sensor-activated vanity mirror that uses LED light technology.

Awards

* The Housewares Design Award in 2013 for the semi-round sensor can * The European Consumer Choice Awards in 2011 for the steel frame dishrack * The European Consumer Choice Awards in 2012 for the butterfly sensor can{{Cite web, url=http://www.europeanconsumerschoice.org/house/simplehuman-butterfly-sensor-can-test-and-reviews/, title=Butterfly sensor can – Test and reviews – European Consumers Choice, website=www.europeanconsumerschoice.org, access-date=2016-05-21

References

External links

Official websiteUK websiteCanadian websiteFrench Canadian websiteFrench websiteGerman Website
Companies established in 2000 Companies based in Torrance, California Kitchenware brands