The company was founded in 1919 in Aalst, a town in North Brabant, the Netherlands, under the name van Elderen & Co, a company specialising in sheet metal fabrication.

The name Brabantia comes from a region in the very south of Holland - Brabant - and was an early van Elderen trade name.

Today the company has a range of some 500 housewares products in five core categories: waste storage, food storage, food preparation, laundry care and hardware, which includes post boxes and bathroom accessories.

Still using steel as its prime manufacturing material, as well as a variety of high grade plastics, products continue to be made in-house in Holland, Belgium, Germany and China, as well as an assembly and finishing plant in Nailsea in the UK.

The company has wholly owned subsidiaries in all key European markets including Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and the USA with an export department covering other world markets.