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History About Qualitools

Qualitools was established in 1995 by current owner James van Reenen. However, to understand the company’s existence and its crucial role in South Africa’s hardware industry, you have to go back quite a number of years. Van Reenen joined the South African Air Force in 1985 where he became a flight engineer.

Upon the completion of his service, he went to the United States in 1988 to find an aircraft which he could use in South Africa. However, he came across a unique product – Roadfix.

After a considerable investment by van Reenen, the CSIR joined him in his efforts and delivered a revolutionary product to South African Industry. This innovative product was also linked to the industry and thus he set out to find suitable companies in the Far East who would be able to assist in the production of Roadfix.

1993

It was during his time in China that van Reenen started a relationship with Shanghai Machinery. Today, both Shanghai Machinery and Qualitools are owned by van Reenen. “I realised that the crushing industry would be difficult to penetrate and I made the decision to sell my Roadfix shares in 1993,” says van Reenen.

With Shanghai Machinery by his side, van Reenen established Qualitools and started importing a range of circlip pliers into South Africa. Over the years, the range has grown and today Qualitools boasts a mammoth 600 products under its banner. “This is a steady, hard, unforgiving industry. We had to establish our brand and then build the product into the market,” he explains. He identified that the importers are normally stuck with certain brands.

Thus he opened himself to any available brand in the market. This, coupled with his packaging and branding facilities, has allowed the company to firmly establish itself in the South African Market. ” Today we import a number of brands for other companies in South Africa,” explains van Reenen.

This has had a number of payoffs for the company, including packaging products for major retailers and wholesalers in the country such as Cashbuild, Builder’s Warehouse and Jack’s Paint & Hardware. ” To make it in this market, one has to be a hard worker, have a good quality and price product mix, offer consistent quality, understand your market and be able to quickly adapt to change,” he says. With 34 staff members and premises spanning only 1 100m’, van Reenen makes clear that the time for expansion is upon them. Another important factor in the Qualitools setup is its central business.

We used to supply the industry with hand tools. Now, consumables have started to play a major role in the market

This would explain why the company is bringing in a number of other products ranging from saw blades to dust masks. When you talk of the future, van Reenen gets very excited.

“one of the key aspects of succeeding in the future will be for suppliers to increase their basket of products.

I don’t want Qualitools to be seen as a wholesaler, but rather as a tool supplier. Another important aspect is that we offer retailers the opportunity to stock products packaged in their own branding” he explains.