Company history
Teakwood and Germany are two words that don't have any connection. But to me right now, those two words are not only essential and challenging, but also beautiful to me from the moment I decided to pick up on my family business. So here goes my story.
My grandpa started to the bussiness in 1971. At the time, he couldn't afford to buy the electronic wood saw yet, so they used the manual one. It takes two people to do that, one above and one below to break a big teak tree into smaller parts with hand. My grandma then gathered the wood debris and sold it together with the waste parts of the wood that people in Indonesia used as firewood to cook. The two of them try to make use of all parts of the teak tree that can help people around them. My grandpa continued selling parts of teak wood, which was a huge succes, which eventually grew into the idea to sell furniture as an addition to the business years after. Soon he sold both raw wood and furniture, and the company is continuously growing.
As my grandpa grew older and had some other business, my uncle took over the business. Although he wasn't an interior architect, but with his wholeheartedness and creativity, my uncle designed the items of furniture and sold it first to the local, and then to national markets. As time went by, he started contacting international furniture sellers. Some international seller visited our factory, saw the potential and took interest in our business, specifically to the high quality of the Indonesian Teak wood. Our factory started to sell our furniture to global companies such as Zara Home, H&M home, TK Maxx, Home Depot, Maisons du Monde etc.
From less than ten employees, now our factory in Indonesia has more than 65 employees. The bond between generations in the company does not only run on the management level, but the family of our employees also share a special connection with the company. For family is in Asian culture one of the most important value, we make sure that everybody can see that their value is being enhanced and celebrated in our working space. We have had three generations of a family working at our factory, from grandpa, dad to son.
The name JAVABEL comes from JAVA and MÖBEL (German language for furniture).
The story from JAVABEL started in Bremen on October 2021, and I'm the third generation of the furniture business in my family. I finished my Business Administration (BWL) study, and my husband, Phu Le, also completed his Architecture at Bremen Applied Science University. From our study time, we know Himawan Prakoso, who was our senior there. He also studied Business Administration (BWL). At that time, we wanted to know if we could sell Indonesian furniture to Germany and Europe. We also want to give the most profit to the Indonesian wood craftsman and sell it directly to Germany from our manufacturer. Since we are studying in Germany, we also understand the legal requirements and documents that can help Indonesian businesses directly without involving a third party or external. That is when the interest sparked that we are motivated to expand the existing family business to Europe.
With JAVABEL, we want to present luxurious yet modern Indonesian and Asian furniture and woodcraft to Europe and the world. We want to show people around the world the potential and quality of Indonesian products, specifically furniture and handcraft which should be more well presented. We also want to be innovative and keep up with the trend through our product, and eventually to improve and enlarge our ideas, opportunity, potential and current success that we have. That is how JAVABEL was created.