IKEA

IKEA was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad who was only seventeen at that time. He lived in a small village which name was Elmtaryd and it was close to another village with the name Agunnaryd. That´s what IKEA stands for, Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.

In the beginning IKEA started by selling matches, pens and other stuff that people requested. But the furniture manufacturing didn’t start until 1948. At that time they sent out a catalogue and transported the furniture to the buyers. The first IKEA store opened 1948 in Älmhult which is pretty close to his home village.

His idea about IKEA was to offer furniture and decoration articles at a low price, so that many people could afford to buy them to get a better standard of living. The company always wanted to make all their products a little simpler, better and effective.

IKEA is now mostly famous for selling furniture and the oldest and maybe most famous item is the “Billy” bookcase, which is over twenty years old.

IKEA has got 313 warehouses in 38 countries. The first Italian IKEA-department opened in 1989 in Milano. Now they got 18 warehouses in Italy. http://www.ikea.com/it/

IKEA offer a lot of typical Swedish food in their warehouses. “Swedish meatballs” is a big hit. IKEA serves 150 million meatballs each year worldwide. The names of the furniture and the products have Swedish names, which is a very smart idea!

The idea of designing furniture for flat packs came when one of the workers decided to remove one of the legs of a table as to fit into a car and avoid damage during the transit. After this incident then flat packs became an important part of the IKEA concept.

Ingvar Kamprad is Sweden’s most successful entrepreneur ever!

This is a photo of Ingvar Kamprad in Venice surrounded by some GKC-girls in September 2008.

Written by: Amanda, Emma, Maryama, Matilda, Olivia