Made for brands you already know.
Every project here was custom-developed for a client brand. Not stock items: proof of what we can engineer with you.
Read the first case ↓Taming olive wood at oversized scale
The client came to us with an ambitious brief: a premium collection built around a centrepiece cutting board in olive wood. What made it different was the extraordinary size of the board and the choice of olive wood, a prestigious material that is notoriously hard to stabilise because of its tannin content, irregular grain and sensitivity to humidity.
The brief added strict cost targets and specific retail packaging requirements for the US market.
An oversized board in olive wood, a species that warps and splits at scale, to be delivered against strict cost targets and US retail packaging rules.
Stabilised the wood as an engineered component through lamellar construction and finger-jointing, then added a laser-cut stainless steel hook fixed with high-load rivets.
A retail-ready icon on the shelves of Williams Sonoma, cost targets met and the whole supply chain managed for a Tier-1 global retailer.
The solution
Wood treated as an engineered component
To guarantee dimensional stability on such a large surface we moved away from traditional solid planks. Selected olive wood lamellae, assembled with precision finger-joint technology in a multi-layered structure, create a tension-free core that resists warping.
The signature hanging hook was designed in-house and laser-cut for a seamless fit, then fixed with specialised mechanical rivets instead of standard fasteners: the heavy board stays safe and balanced for a lifetime of use.
Advanced wood engineering plus mechanical precision: a feat of craftsmanship and a masterpiece of industrial durability.
The result
On the shelves of a leading US retailer
Minelli Group acted as the strategic manufacturer for the brand, which placed the collection with one of the most prestigious kitchenware retailers in the United States.
Despite the technical complexity of olive wood and an intricate supply chain, the project was delivered as a retail-ready icon, and remains a benchmark for how industrial expertise can tame the most challenging natural materials.
Luxury wine storage, engineered to a cost target
The brief was a high-end, aesthetically striking wine storage cabinet and shelf for a well-known Italian premium appliance brand, an icon of kitchen appliances. The difficulty was not the look: it was delivering it under strict cost restrictions, without lowering the standard the brand is known for.
The market reference was a category of cheap, simple wine racks. The product had to sit in a completely different league while staying industrially viable.
A striking wine storage cabinet and shelf for SMEG, benchmarked against cheap mass-market wine racks but held to strict cost limits and premium brand standards.
Solid oak and thermo-treated ash worked with precision joinery and metal guides, with every detail value-engineered to hit the target cost without touching the finish.
A wine solution in a completely different league from the market reference, industrially viable and now part of SMEG premium appliances.
The solution
Oak, metal inserts and the dowel technique
We applied our expertise in wood craftsmanship and material optimisation: classic and innovative elements together, with horizontal surfaces and lateral crossbars interconnected by wooden dowels, a signature Minelli technique.
Each dowel is inserted into a pre-drilled hole, then pressed and glued, so the structure stays rigid and does not deform over time. Metal inserts complete the piece where function and finish meet.
Premium materials plus artisanal joinery, industrialised: elegance that survives daily use.
The result
Nothing like the mass-produced alternative
Luxurious oak, metal inserts and precise artisanal construction: a piece that meets the brand's standards for design and performance, despite the cost challenge.
This is one example of what we build for brands that want high-end, customised solutions that go beyond the ordinary: where design meets technical excellence.
Hidden magnetism in a solid wood cone
Not an external commission: a project developed entirely in-house as an exclusive Christmas gift for around one hundred key clients and industrial partners. A minimalist sculpture with an iconic cone geometry, sitting in the luxury giftware and home décor segment.
It goes beyond the classic corporate gift and becomes an interactive, collectible decoration: steel spheres of different sizes can be placed and removed at will, held firmly in their recesses by magnets completely concealed inside the wooden structure.
Design a corporate gift for around one hundred key clients that would sit in the luxury giftware segment instead of ending up in a drawer.
CNC-turned the cone from solid wood and concealed magnets inside the structure, so steel spheres of different sizes can be placed and removed at will.
An interactive, collectible decoration built entirely in-house, and a demonstration of invisible technology inside a natural material.
The challenge and the solution
We ran the project as if we were our own client
The difficulty was a perfect external conical turning while holding rigorous tolerances on the diameters and depths of the slots, in a very short window, right before the holidays, without slowing the lines dedicated to clients.
Our R&D division ran laboratory tests to calibrate the depth of the blind holes and the power of the concealed magnets, so the attraction works through the wood fibres even for the heavier spheres. The CNC department guaranteed microscopic precision on the variable-diameter conical slots.
To show the versatility of our material selection, the tree was produced in several wood species, all with a natural tactile finish.
The result
A hundred pieces, one industrial capability demonstrator
A limited edition, never launched on the market, distributed only to partners and clients. The response was a networking success, with compliments on both the concept and the flawless execution.
Above all it worked as tangible proof of craftsmanship: what we can do with multi-material engineering, hidden technology and wood, when the brief is simply "amaze them".
A sliding board that moves a kitchen icon
One of Europe's best-known multifunctional kitchen robots needed an official accessory: a board that lets owners slide and reposition the appliance on the worktop without lifting it, guaranteed 100% compatible with the machine it was built for.
The concept arrived from one of the brand's distributors as an idea, nothing more. There was no engineering, no material specification and no production route: the brand handed the whole development to us.
Turn a distributor's rough concept into an official branded accessory that slides freely on a worktop yet never moves when the appliance is running.
Engineered the product from scratch in co-design with the client: a wooden body combined with Teflon glides and rubber grip elements, plus custom retail packaging.
A full-service programme: we manufacture, assemble, pack and ship to the brand's warehouses in Europe and the USA, from where it reaches the consumer.
The solution
Three materials doing three opposite jobs
The accessory has to glide and stay put at the same time. We solved the contradiction by combining wood for the structure and the look, Teflon elements for a friction-free glide across the countertop, and rubber components for grip once the appliance is in position.
Getting there meant intricate design work and a multi-part assembly, developed in a continuous co-engineering dialogue with the client's technical team until every tolerance matched the appliance it was built around.
We also developed the custom retail packaging, so the product reaches the end consumer exactly as the brand intended.
The result
The whole cycle, in one partner
We are responsible for the entire production cycle: manufacturing, assembly, packaging and shipping to the client's warehouses in Europe and the United States, from where the accessory goes straight to the consumer.
The brand relies entirely on our quality control: no incoming inspection on their side, because the checks happen here before anything leaves the plant.
Blown glass, translated into wood
The client sits in the elite segment of luxury home décor and premium tableware, selling to high-spending consumers, interior designers and architects, with material research and Made in Italy elegance as its signature.
The brief: take a decorative centrepiece originally conceived in Murano artistic glass, with an organic, concave, sculptural shape, and reproduce it in wood as a serialisable product.
No technical drawing existed, only the handcrafted glass piece. Its fluid asymmetrical curves had to survive the move to an anisotropic living material without cracking or warping.
Millimetre-accurate 3D scanning, CAD/CAM reinterpretation of the geometry, CWP laminated wood for stability, five-axis solid milling and a high-gloss finishing cycle.
A serialisable piece with the warmth of wood and the precision of CNC, opening the way to a whole family of CWP décor accessories.
The solution
Reverse engineering an artwork
Our R&D team began with a millimetre-accurate 3D scan of the glass sample. The digital data was then processed in CAD/CAM to rationalise the curved surfaces and re-orient the geometry around the behaviour of wood fibre, guaranteeing constant minimum thicknesses.
CWP laminated wood was chosen for exceptional dimensional stability and for the controlled aesthetic orientation of its layers. From the pre-engineered block, five-axis solid milling reproduced the concave organic volume, with tool paths and edge blending mapped in advance.
A fine sanding cycle and a high-gloss finish, under strict optical and dimensional control, replicate the shine and preciousness of the original glass.
The result
From one-off artwork to repeatable collection
The client obtained a serialisable product of extraordinary sensory impact, combining the intrinsic warmth of wood with the millimetre precision of numerical control, and drastically shortened the distance between concept, prototype and commercialisation.
The method now opens the way to new collections of décor accessories in CWP, with dimensional, chromatic and aesthetic variations, and total batch repeatability.
A sculpture that had to become a product
The client is a prestigious international brand in contemporary design, furniture and home accessories, known for iconic products born with world-renowned designers and sold through architects, interior designers and leading showrooms.
The object: a decorative tabletop sculpture that works as a container, with a cylindrical body and a removable top. To move past the limits of purely manual production, the maison came to us for the industrialisation.
Serialise an asymmetrical art object with infinitesimal tolerances between body and lid, perfect grain continuity and no visible glue lines, in thermo-treated ash.
Selected and prepared the thermo-ash blocks with invisible joints, rationalised the geometry in CAD/CAM, milled from solid on CNC centres and finished by controlled hand sanding.
A high-impact decorative object launched on an efficient, scalable process, free of the bottlenecks and quality risk of non-standardised craft production.
The solution
Invisible joints, millimetre couplings
It started with the material: thermo-treated ash, chosen for its stability and refined dark hue. Our technicians then developed a dedicated preparation process, building glued blocks whose joint lines are visually invisible and whose fibre arrangement is optimised for what comes next.
CAD/CAM rationalisation mapped the sculptural surfaces; latest-generation CNC centres milled the volume from solid, obtaining the functional coupling between body and lid. Dedicated finishing cycles then brought out the natural texture of the wood.
Every piece passes optical and dimensional inspection on tolerances, couplings and final aesthetic selection.
The result
Signature design, without craft variability
The maison launched a decorative object of massive sensory impact backed by an efficient, controlled and scalable process, eliminating the quality risks and bottlenecks typical of non-standardised artisanal production.
Quality consistency is now guaranteed on future reorders too: proof that advanced industrial manufacturing can serve the most uncompromising signature design.
Four worlds, one manufacturing floor
More case histories are being published. In the meantime, these are the families we develop every day for OEM and private label programmes.
Cookware
Cutting boards
Barbecue tools
Prosumer espresso machines
Home décor
What's next? You name it. We make it.
Let's put it into production.
Send us the product you have in mind, with volumes and materials if you already know them. Our engineers will tell you how to make it, and what it will take.
No idea is too complex and no detail too small: we have spent ninety years solving problems other manufacturers turn down.
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