Cuban enterprise Gabi & Sofi is present at Möbel Austria 2021, the most important furniture fair in Europe. The brand is showcasing its new line of children’s furniture and toys in a 50m2 stand, with the help of German company Profumed.
“This is a great opportunity both for the children’s brand and for Cuba, as it is the first time that a Cuban children’s product is exhibited at a fair of such magnitude. For the fair we exported toys and furniture made by Decorarte, which will be on display from October 6 to 8,” explains Laura San Marful, the brand’s marketing director.
“With this participation, we seek international recognition of this Cuban children’s brand, to promote interest and negotiations that will lead to future exports that will position Gabi & Sofi in the international market.”
The brand has secured recognition in the domestic market through intense advertising work, backed by the quality of its products, and through the positioning of stores in several provinces of the country: Havana, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, Ciego de Avila and Camagüey. More than 40 toys from its collection are even being exhibited in a permanent room of the Museum of Decorative Arts in the City of Cienfuegos.
“As a children’s brand, Gabi & Sofi aims to provide families with a safe product, certified by the relevant institutions, whose production transits through a certified Quality Management system under the ISO 9001/2015 norm, and an environmental system in the process of certification with the 14000/2015 standard. They are ecological products, which do not stimulate consumerism and offer long-lasting productions.”
Gabi & Sofi’s educational toys are made from surplus materials from Cuban industry. On the other hand, its theme parks are spaces with playful equipment for children’s games, in environments designed to generate social interaction between children, their families and friends, keeping them away from the excessive use of technology.
All toys in the Gabi & Sofi universe are certified by the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (INHEM) and are currently in the process of being certified in the European Union. They are designed to favor child development and to spread and promote human, civic and spiritual values, using play as a learning tool.
According to Laura, the team is made up of a group of people who are always seeking to enrich the lives of our children in a healthy way. Therefore, Gabi & Sofi’s goal is to reach every corner of the country, create new designs of games and toys every day, launch several children’s music albums, create cartoons, fiction series and even a movie.
Gabi & Sofi emerged in the Varadero peninsula, in response to a need identified by Ariel Balmaseda and Isabel Pupo, president and vice president of Decorarte. With their entrepreneurial vision, they realized that a children’s proposal should be developed that would allow them to provide both their own children and others with a healthy environment in which to develop, as well as a local proposal for the Varadero peninsula, with the objective of offering an attractive product made in Cuba both for the inhabitants of the area and for foreign visitors.
The brand launch took place at the 2016 Cuba Industria International Fair, where they obtained two first prizes of international character.
Today, Gabi & Sofi is a comprehensive brand defined as an “Everything for children” that offers a wide range of items such as educational toys, children’s furniture, clothing, school supplies and decoration for child spaces, cartoons, children’s music, television series and cartoons, among others.
