Someone who is high income; someone who appreciates a high-performance cooking machine; or someone who likes the appearance of our product and its presence in the kitchen. Then, there’s the value it brings. A lot of people say this is a range you can put in your will and pass along to your grandkids. This is not a disposable range.  

VIKING RANGE produced its first prototype in 1986.

How do you design your products to meet the specific needs of this clientele?

We do focus groups in spurts. We have dealers who specialize in high-end specialty products. They come into Viking on a weekly basis for training, but this is mutually beneficial, because while they are here, we pick their brains.

Do you plan to continue to focus solely on the ultrapremium market, or do you plan to offer a more affordable product line in the future?

In the future, we want to have an entirely different product line that is not quite as super-expensive as Viking. We would introduce a premium product that does not have the professional look. A lot of people can afford Viking products, but they are not into the look. We would like to give them an alternative.

Are you concerned that will diminish the cachet of owning a Viking range?

I’m not sure I should disclose a lot of this stuff, but to answer your question, yes. We are afraid of that, so we would create a whole new brand.

You operate four manufacturing plants in Greenwood. Why don’t you send your production offshore?

I hope we will never have to do that. We want to keep jobs here in the impoverished Mississippi Delta. We want an American-made product. There is nothing we can do about buying certain components, like valves, that are made in China, but I will fight long and hard to keep from outsourcing our finished product to China or any other foreign market. It needs to be here. We are a mass customization company. We don’t build anything until it is ordered by a distributor. China is not set up for that. If we wanted a boatload of 36-inch, stainless steel, six-burner ranges, they could provide them to us cheaper—though probably not as good quality. But we are not that kind of company, and I don’t envision us ever being that kind of company. As a matter of fact, that is not the kind of company I want to have anything to do with.

On the flip side, do you see China and other emerging economies as being lucrative markets for Viking?

We do. In fact, we’ve been in China on a very small scale for a couple of years. We are now seeing demand increase there. They are becoming hungry for luxury goods. We are going into a big dealership in Shanghai. We are going to take advantage of it like everybody else.