Core Home is a consumer products company headquartered in New York City that specialises in design-led, trend-forward lifestyle goods. Founded in 2009 by brothers Alan and Steven Bram, the firm originally focused on fashionable, sustainable bamboo kitchenware before expanding into a multi-category platform encompassing housewares, hydration, toys and games, pet products, health and beauty, and food and beverage [1]. The company positions its offerings at the intersection of design, functionality, and sustainability, aiming to create visually distinctive yet accessible products using responsible materials and manufacturing practices [1].

The organisation describes itself as a “design-powered ecosystem” with a mission to produce sustainable, trend-responsive products for consumers [1].

Founding and Early Years

Core Home was established in 2009 when founders Alan and Steven Bram identified a market opportunity for bamboo kitchenware that was both environmentally conscious and aesthetically contemporary [1]. Rather than treating bamboo merely as an alternative material, they sought to combine sustainability with modern design and broad consumer appeal. This philosophy became the foundation for the company’s subsequent growth [1]. While initially concentrated on kitchen and housewares, the firm gradually expanded its product development capabilities and portfolio.

Expansion Beyond Bamboo

Over time, Core Home moved beyond its original bamboo offering to include kitchen tools and gadgets, cookware, food preparation items, storage and organisation solutions, hydration products, home accessories, pet supplies, health and beauty items, toys and games, and food and beverage products [1]. Consequently, the company is now regarded as a comprehensive consumer-products platform rather than solely a kitchenware brand [1].

Core Home was established by brothers Alan Bram and Steven Bram, whose continued involvement remains central to the company’s identity as a family-founded business operating within the international consumer-products sector.

Alan Bram

Alan Bram serves as Co-Founder and Chairman [1]. His stated philosophy emphasises evolving alongside consumers and utilising aesthetics, sustainability, and ingenuity to transform the housewares industry [1].

Steven Bram

Steven Bram holds the position of Co-Founder and CEO. He frequently cites the original 2009 bamboo initiative and the subsequent expansion into cookware, hydration, and everyday home accessories as pivotal moments in the company’s history, attributing its development to dedication, humility, and adaptability.

Core Home operates across multiple layers of the consumer-products value chain, functioning simultaneously as a brand owner, product developer, manufacturer, and licensing partner.

Product Development

The company maintains an internal product-development operation comprising product developers, industrial designers, engineers, marketing specialists, and account managers. Technologies such as 3D printing, modelling, and engineering are employed to develop and customise products [1].

Manufacturing

The New York team works closely with vertically integrated factories in China as well as partner facilities globally. This structure allows Core Home to maintain involvement from the concept stage through to manufacturing, distinguishing it from traditional brand marketers.

Private Label and Collaborations

Private-label manufacturing constitutes a significant portion of the business, with approximately 40% of revenue derived from collaboration and production with private-label partners [1]. These partners are granted access to Core Home’s modelling technology, 3D printers, engineering resources, and product-development capabilities [1]. Additionally, the company engages in licensing agreements involving television and entertainment properties, celebrity chefs, and other recognisable consumer franchises, applying its infrastructure to existing intellectual property.

Value Chain Integration

The business model can be visualised as a progression from consumer insight to design, engineering, manufacturing, branding, and finally retail or private-label distribution. This integrated capability is divided into four primary areas:

1. Owned/In-House Brands: Products developed and marketed under Core Home’s proprietary portfolio.
2. Private Label: Designing and producing goods for external retailers and companies.
3. Licensing: Creating products based on established brands, entertainment properties, or personalities.
4. Collaborations: Partnering with outside creators and brands to develop specialised products.

Core Home manages a dynamic portfolio of brands rather than relying on a single consumer-facing name.

Core Kitchen

Core Kitchen is a principal brand focusing on kitchen tools, gadgets, storage, preparation, and everyday essentials. It is positioned as affordable, colourful, functional, and contemporary, combining standard products with inventive kitchen solutions.

Core Bamboo

Closely linked to the company’s heritage, Core Bamboo utilises ethically sourced organic bamboo, including FSC-certified materials, for food-preparation accessories, storage, organisation, serving ware, and home décor [2]. This brand represents the clearest expression of the company’s original sustainability and design philosophy.

Brooklyn Steel Co.

Brooklyn Steel Co. targets the modern chef with an industrial-inspired aesthetic. The brand focuses on cookware, kitchen tools, and housewares featuring sleek designs and high-quality materials [2].

Manna Hydration

Manna is the company’s hydration-focused brand, centring on reusable drinkware and accessories. It combines reusability, design, colour, and functional materials, illustrating Core Home’s expansion from traditional kitchenware into broader lifestyle categories [1].

Other Brands

The portfolio has also included brands such as Thyme & Table, TAL, Core Supply, Hydragear, Maison Debase, Arete & Athene, Mayim, Sweet Sugar Fantasy, W+W, and Yellow Cab Games [3]. The brand architecture is fluid, changing as the company launches, acquires, develops, or licenses new concepts.

Core Home’s current business extends significantly beyond its historical core of housewares, which includes kitchen tools, cookware, food preparation, storage, cleaning, serving, organisation, and home accessories. Key growth categories include:

• Hydration: Reusable bottles and drinkware, primarily through the Manna brand.
• Toys & Games: An expansion of consumer-product development capabilities into play and entertainment.
• Pet Products: Goods designed for pets and their owners.
• Health & Beauty: A newer extension of the design and manufacturing platform.
• Food & Beverage: In 2024, the company began extending its platform into this category, describing it as a natural evolution of its kitchen-oriented heritage.

Design is a defining characteristic of Core Home’s operations. The company aims to combine utility with visual identity, moving beyond basic household functionality to incorporate innovation, originality, collaboration, sustainability, creativity, performance, and aesthetics. Products typically emphasise colours, patterns, shapes, materials, and packaging to remain trend-aware and stylistically distinct.

Sustainability is a core corporate theme integrated into the company’s strategy through recycled materials, renewable product concepts, reduced reliance on single-use plastics, sustainably sourced raw materials, energy-efficient manufacturing, solar power, and waste-gas treatment. Core Home reports that its manufacturing operations conserve at least 5.4 tons of VOC emissions annually, purify emitted waste gas with up to 98% efficiency, and generate approximately 1.85 million kWh of electricity via solar panels [1]. The company also emphasises the use of food-safe materials and sustainable sourcing practices.

Core Home promotes a family-business culture characterised by an “old-school small business” mentality where employees are treated like family. Simultaneously, it emphasises diversity, inclusion, empowerment, equal opportunity, and individual expression, identifying as an Equal Opportunity Employer with a workforce representing various genders, races, religions, and sexual orientations. This creates a distinct identity that blends a family-oriented culture with modern global consumer-products operations.

While fundamentally a New York City company with product development, design, engineering, marketing, and account management functions based there, Core Home’s operations are international. Manufacturing is conducted through vertically integrated facilities in China and partner factories worldwide. The company identifies strongly with its NYC origins and states that giving back to the city has been part of its business model since founding.

Core Home occupies a middle ground in the consumer-products market, neither a traditional kitchenware manufacturer nor purely a fashion brand. Its competitive proposition lies in its integrated ability to identify trends, design attractive products, engineer and manufacture them, and bring them to market. This combination of design, manufacturing, private-label services, licensing, and sustainability differentiates it from conventional housewares brands and offers value to retailers seeking distinctive products without building internal development infrastructure.

1. Core Home – Designing the Future of Lifestyle
2. PowerPoint Presentation
3. Core Home | The Future of Housewares | United States