Senior product manager (refrigeration) Nick Osborne explains its latest cooling tech

K&B News: Why are you here at KBB Birmingham?

Nick Osbourne (NO): We’re showing off some of our built in laundry products, microwaves and refrigeration to our kitchen specialist partners. It’s a channel we really want to develop, and we’re working hard with partners to make sure we get into that segment.

K&B News: What products are you showcasing?

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NO: So the couple of biggest launches in freestanding we’ve got this year are firstly for laundry. AddWash, which uses an AddWash door within the door of the laundry product, means you can add items during the wash. It is a simple innovation, but in a retail environment it can really stand out against competitive products. Second is our Family Hub refrigerator which is hugely exciting. It’s a really big step in refrigeration – smart refrigeration has been talked about for a while but at Samsung we really want to drive that change in innovation and we think we’ve got a proposition which can do that.

K&B News: Can you tell us about the Family Hub?

NO: On the front it has a 21.5 inch LCD HD screen which runs Tizen operating system, and what that means is the benefits it brings in three different areas. These are food management and recipe inspiration, entertainment and family organisation. On the food management side it has three internal cameras, which allow you, when the door is closed, to see a snapshot on your smart phone of what is inside your fridge. Imagine when you are out at the supermarket, you can check instantaneously what’s in your fridge. Also on the screen itself, you can set reminders as to when food items go out of date and you can get those alerts on your phone which is really quick and easy to do. It will include our Chef Collection application which will give lots of bespoke recipes and content for consumers to be inspired to cook different things in the kitchen area. More and more smart appliances are becoming accepted as consumers are gaining education and awareness of them and we feel we want to keep driving that and educating consumers more and more.

K&B News: What response have you had at the show?

NO: We’ve found that retailers have been really positive at the KBB show which has been really encouraging for us, especially with freestanding large capacity products such as the American-style and the Multi-Door, I think retailers are finding that consumers want those more in a kitchen area as well as integrated products. So being able to offer the Family Hub interaction and innovation is a really exciting proposition for them. It has been really busy. It is great to see so many people.