Campfire Group opens new manufacturing location ‘Basecamp Emmen’, home base of Holtkamper and Easy Caravanning tent trailers.
On Wednesday the 6th of April Eric van Oosterhout, Mayor of Emmen, officially opened the new ‘Tent Trailer Center Basecamp’ in front of staff and press. At the new location at Paganelstraat 12 in Emmen, almost all activities of Holtkamper and Easy Caravanning are centralised. On the ground floor, the production of the innovative cross-over camping concept ‘TakeOff’ takes place. Furthermore, here you will find all supporting disciplines such as marketing, sales, service, purchasing and the central warehouse, engineering, administration and the tent workshop. All models of both ‘made in the Netherlands’ premium trailer tent brands can be admired by appointment in the spacious showroom on the 1st floor, from where the assembly process can be observed.
“The centralization of our activities in Northern Netherlands is the next step in rolling out our growth strategy at home and abroad,” said Maarten de Roos, managing director of the Campfire Group. “With start-up Easy Caravanning now in the scale-up phase, it was a logical next step to bring together the 3 locations for the assembly of our 2 own brands and the showroom and service workshop. This way, we can realise maximum synergy in both front and back-office activities. The Holtkamper assembly line (in close co-operation with manufacturing partner Technologies Added) is located within walking distance at the Kapitein Grantstraat”.
Niels Gerrits, Manager Operations continues: “The popularity for camping has further increased over the past few years – partly due to the influence of the corona pandemic. Light compact camping concepts are gaining popularity as today’s tow vehicles are more and more equipped with smaller energy efficient engines and/or fully electric drive trains. As Campfire Group, we have seen our growth further increase with the introduction of our 2nd own brand Easy Caravanning at the end of 2019. Several new projects are also in the pipeline for the coming years to further strengthen this strategy. It was therefore time, also from a capacity point of view, to move to a new larger location”.
The new factory in Emmen houses a production line with 8 workstations with separate cells for subassembly, prototype construction and woodworking, among other things. After entering the factory, visitors walk through a corridor to the showroom. In the corridor, a small “history unfold” exhibition looks back at the development of both trailer tent brands. In a time of increasing consolidation of manufacturers in the camping industry by European or global groups of manufacturers, with this new factory, the Netherlands has gained a unique independent manufacturer of top-of-the-range tent trailers.
