Vanilla Steel has launched a new e-auction platform designed for European steel suppliers. While the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the global economy hard, the EUR 170 billion European steel industry has fallen into a state of emergency. Already facing a global overcapacity of 500 million tonnes prior to the coronavirus, steel suppliers are under pressure to reinvent themselves in a market full of uncertainty with low demand. COVID-19 has accelerated the need for digital sales channels for steel that reduce the cost of selling as well as the cost of inventory. Yet not everyone is capable of building their own proprietary digital solution. Vanilla Steel helps steel suppliers, producers & stockists to sell their excess material to a network of trustworthy steel professionals through online auctions published by suppliers. In addition, Vanilla Steel also enables them to market their free production capacity.

The customers of Vanilla Steel are steel producers and processors in Europe that generate excess material and are looking to efficiently sell this highly illiquid and difficult-to-price material. Excess material has no price tag attached by definition. Vanilla Steel helps suppliers to find a fair market price through online auctions. Every week, sellers can publish material and be matched with buyers that offer bids above their minimum prices. Vanilla Steel provides the details of the winning bidders to the suppliers and the transaction is finalized directly between the supplier and buyer on the pre-agreed terms.

A broad variety of excess material can be found on Vanilla Steel: overrollings, excess prime and semi-finished products with no customer order as well as declassified material that can be further processed. Stockists also use Vanilla Steel for inventory management purposes to sell slow moving material.

Vanilla Steel is a managed e-auction platform for excess material in Carbon and Stainless Steel. The company is headquartered in Berlin and is managed by its 4 co-founders, Matthias Affeldt, Alexis Ducros, Clifford Ondara & Simon Zühlke, that combine 50 years of digital experience and are passionate about solving existing challenges in the European steel industry through digitalization.