The first echoes of Fisher & Paykel began in New Zealand, when Olive Paykel asked her husband to import a new appliance – a Crosley refrigerator – she’d seen in the American Ladies' Home Journal. She wasn’t the only person who wanted one, and with this popularity, so began a fast-growing appliance importing business run by Olive’s son Maurice Paykel and her son-in-law, Woolf Fisher. This was the beginning of Fisher & Paykel.
When the New Zealand government banned imports of manufactured products a few years later, Fisher and Paykel responded. Rather than closing up shop, we changed our entire approach, establishing a factory to assemble appliances ourselves under licence to companies such as Kelvinator.
Next, we began seeking ways to find a point of difference.
