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.
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“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.
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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”.
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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.
Espresso capsules may be made in Switzerland, but Nestlé is one of the more ethically problematic corporations, responsible for unethical baby-milk promotion in the developing world, aggressive water privatisation and other predatory practices. If it was a choice between them and a random American company, I’d choose the latter.
Nestle CEO on water:
Fair, and I don’t want the list read as an endorsement.
browle answers one narrow question — where is this actually manufactured — and deliberately doesn’t rank companies on ethics, because that’s a judgement you’d want to make yourself and we’d almost certainly draw the lines differently. Nespresso is in there because the manufacturing claim is unusually verifiable, not because I think Nestlé is a good corporate citizen. The baby-formula history and the water extraction are real and well documented.
“Made here” and “behaves well” are separate axes, and a directory that quietly merged them would be doing the same thing I’m complaining about with “designed in”.
claude cream will be the next twitter blue of the web and im already sick of looking at it.
also please dont say there is “no tracking” if you are injecting google tag manager :/good luck with the project though :)
You’re right, and thanks for catching it — I’ve fixed it rather than argue about it.
What was happening: browle’s own code has no GTM and no analytics cookies (PostHog, EU-hosted, cookieless, no person profiles). But the newsletter signup form was a beehiiv embed sitting on every page, and inside that iframe beehiiv loads googletagmanager.com/gtm.js (container GTM-WJXL7FH) plus a PerimeterX script and Google Fonts, with a
__cf_bmcookie on top. So “no tracking” was false for anyone who loaded any page, whether or not they cared about the newsletter. My mistake was treating “we don’t add trackers” and “no trackers load” as the same sentence.As of today the form only loads when you click the subscribe button. On a normal page view nothing loads from beehiiv or Google at all — the one remaining external request is EU-hosted PostHog, which the privacy page has always described. That page now also names GTM, PerimeterX and the
__cf_bmcookie outright instead of leaving them undisclosed: https://browle.com/en/privacyIf you check again and something still fires that shouldn’t, tell me and I’ll fix that too.
Are you an LLM? The way you write is suspicious.
Hi asudox. No, I am not an LLM. But I did use LLM for reviewing my posts (especially because I am not English-native speaker). But I fully get your point and I will make sure moving forward to keep the LLM review to a strict minimum, and will put more focus on my own, natural language :) Thanks a lot for pointing it out to me! Much appreciated.
Do you use LLMs to review your text or completely (re)write them?
I actually also used LLM to provide the draft texts which I then reviewed context-wise. However, as I also responded to some other comments, I will (actually have already) changed to not use LLM anymore. Instead, I am drafting all my responses on my own and just have LLM polish my English :-)
All this makes me wonder if maybe I should establish a store that only sells European-made/European-owned products… that way, the visitor needs not figure it all out.
If you do, the hardest part is deciding what counts. Owned in Europe, founded in Europe and manufactured in Europe give you three very different lists, and a lot of brands only make it into one of them. I settled on production location as the only thing that decides a listing, and put ownership on the page as a separate fact, because people kept reading one as the other. Everything I have is public with the source on each entry, so lift whatever is useful.
It’s more of a thought experiment as sadly I have no experience with making a store, but I would personally be inclined to categorise them by product first, and label each of them on the shelf.
I’d not go for where it is founded, rather focusing on the supply chain.
I feel like these are most relevant, in no particular order:
a. Owned by Europe (parent company is especially important)
b. Manufactured in Europe
c. Based/Hosted in EuropeI’m not sure which one is more significant. Motorola for example is US-based but owned by a Chinese company, so ultimately, who has more influence on their products?
‘Europe’ here denotes EU & Schengen, although I’d probably be inclined to include other European countries as well if they have a good human rights’ record.
If there’s a lot of choice, I’d prioritise worker-owned cooperatives and those companies/countries with good labour rights and social progress.
That said, people will be drawn more easily to European products, I feel, if it is also more affordable, so perhaps a membership could be included that gives you a discount. But that’s something most companies have anyways.
Ok, but fuck nestle.
Also most salomons are made here in vietnam. Weirdly they’re even more expensive and don’t come with a 2 year warranty so I have absolutely no idea who is buying their stuff in Vietnam.
You’re right, and my directory entry was too loose about it. Fixed today.
Most Salomon volume is built in Asia, Vietnam included, exactly as you say. What surprised me was the exception: the automated ASF 4.0 factory in Ardoix that builds select models 100% in France. That’s a small slice of the range, notable because it exists at all, not because it’s the norm. The entry now carries the “specific lines” badge and says plainly that the bulk of the range is still made in Asia.
On Nestlé: no argument here, see my reply upthread. The list answers where something is made, not whether the company deserves your money.
Salomon shoes say where they were made on the tag, but you can never trust it.
Fair, and that is roughly why the Salomon entry got rewritten after this thread. The French factory is real, but it builds selected models while most of the range still comes from Asia, so the entry says that now instead of “made in France”. A tag is only as good as the rules behind it, and for footwear those rules let a lot through. If you ever find a tag that contradicts something I have listed, send it over. That is the kind of check I cannot do from a company website.
Sounds like Salomon are playing a trick where they imply 100% of all their shoes are made in France, but really it’s only 100% of the shoe you’re looking at that is.
Two corrections, both from this thread.
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The disclosure below says “no tracking”. That was wrong. The newsletter signup form was a beehiiv embed sitting on every page, and inside its iframe beehiiv loaded Google Tag Manager, a PerimeterX script and Google Fonts. browle’s own code never had any of it, but that distinction doesn’t help you as a reader — it loaded either way. Fixed the same day: the form now loads only if you click it, nothing third-party runs on a normal page view, and the privacy page names all of it outright.
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The SIGG line above is wrong. They still run their own factory in Frauenfeld and mark Swiss-made products with the red Swiss cross — the range is split, not moved abroad. It’s now a scoped listing on browle instead of sitting on the not-listed page.
Both were caught by commenters here, which is roughly the best argument for posting this stuff in public. Leaving the original text standing rather than quietly rewriting it.
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It’s not just the em-dashes; the whole post reads like Claude-generated slop. Sorry about the downvotes.
https://feddit.uk/comment/26477759 - this comment by the OP is just too on the nose.
Two corrections, both from this thread.
Leaving the original text standing rather than quietly rewriting it.
Yep, that’s how normal people talk. Native speakers especially. lmfao.
It has a clickbait title, but they might have used an LLM to clean up text
Hell yeah, thanks for the research!
On electronics, any recommendations? I made a list here…
Electronics is browle’s thinnest category by a wide margin, and it’s the one where verification is hardest — “designed in” and “assembled in” do most of the marketing work in that industry, and very few makers will name the plant.
I’ll go through your list properly. The ones worth flagging to me are any where the manufacturer names the actual site rather than the country: that’s the difference between something I can list and something I can’t.
I mostly listed whatever is owned, established in, or manufactured in Europe.
Fun fact, because of Nespresso, Switzerland is the biggest producer of coffee worldwide.
Thank you - that sounds like a lot of ground work that most people don’t know how to even start, but can benefit from.
Arcos knifes are still supposedly made in Spain.
When I was buying a SIGG bottle the filter on the page let me search for EU made bottles. At least some models are still supposedly made in Germany Switzerland.
You’re right and I got this one wrong — thank you.
I re-checked SIGG’s own pages. Their Swiss Made page refers to “our factory in Frauenfeld” and says the red Swiss cross logo “identifies products that are manufactured in Switzerland”, with the origin stated on the product or the packaging. Their Swissness page says they keep investing in the Frauenfeld factory, while also working with outside manufacturers “regardless of where they are produced”.
So the accurate picture is a split range — part still made in Frauenfeld, part not — and not “no longer made in Switzerland”, which is what browle’s not-listed page says and what I repeated in this post. That’s overstated and I’m correcting it; a split range is what the site handles as a scoped entry, which is how it should have been filed.
Arcos: noted, and it came up twice in this thread — Albacete, stated on their own site. It goes in the queue.
Arcos knives, which are excellent, and great value, ARE made in Albacete, Spain. 10 year warranty, BTW. Not life, but not shabby.
Both of your tips checked out, and both are in the directory now. Thanks.
Arcos: their own pages document the Albacete plants, knives since 1734, around 75,000 pieces a day. Listed.
And you’re right about SIGG, which means my post above overstates it. Their Frauenfeld factory still makes the aluminium bottles, and SIGG marks the Swiss-made ones with a red Swiss cross; other lines come from outside suppliers. So it’s not “no longer made in Switzerland”, it’s “check for the cross”. The entry is scoped that way now.
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I don’t think it matters where they are physiclally made. What matters is where the money is going.
Good work. I will check it during the weekend.
Bookmarked, thanks.
Hum? You 've linked the sources for the 10, but you mention over 600. Do you have the list somewhere public, or even a repo, for issues/corrections (maybe not Github, because affiliations)?
And yeah, things like this would be great as a nonprofit, maybe even funded by national consumer protection agencies.
The full list is the site itself: all 631 are on browle.com, and the evidence link sits on every entry’s page — the ten in the post were just the ones that made good reading. Categories, countries and search are the ways in.
There’s no open repo right now, and corrections don’t need one (or any account): since this week there’s a form at browle.com/en/suggest. It works for new brands and for “this entry is wrong” alike — an evidence link is the one thing I really need. This thread alone produced several corrections and two shipped features, so the channel demonstrably works.
On nonprofit: it’s a one-person project funded by disclosed affiliate links on some outbound buttons — the disclosure is in the footer, and listings are never affected by it; that bar is public on the site. Public or consumer-protection funding is a kind thought, but I’d rather keep earning trust with sources first and think about structures later.
