In early December, Ecco, the international shoe company, opened new offices in Dongen, Southern Netherlands, for its leather group headquarters. The opening ceremony included the ‘topping out’ of the Research and Development Centre for Leather and was led by Karl Toosbuy, founder and owner of the Denmark-based group, Karsten Borsch and Panos Mytaros, chairman and managing director respectively of Ecco Leather.

Ecco Shoes produces 12 million pairs of shoes per year and plans to increase this to 20 million. Dongen will become Ecco’s management and leather research centre supporting the group’s four tanneries stretching from Europe to Asia.

According to Mr Toosbuy, when the business was established, he decided that if existing tanners could not supply to his standards, he would make his own leather, and expressed gratitude to Panos Mytaros for his work in this respect. The policy of the company was to control the complete supply chain from cow to retail outlets. It currently owns 300 shops worldwide and turnover is $388 million. The company has 9000 employees and its shoes are sold in 37 markets.