International Toy Industry
A 40-Year Expedition with Viking Toys Gösta Kjellme, founder and owner of Viking Toys, discusses the company’s 40-year history. by Gunilla Pihlblad, senior writer, Leksaksrevyn, ITMA member from Sweden
“I
t started in 1972 with Galanite, which at that point was the biggest toy factory in Sweden after Brio,” says Gösta Kjellme, founder and owner of Viking Toys. “There I met Gösta Agel and Björn Alskog, who were already very famous names in the toy business in the ’60s. These acquaintances became the reason that I started Viking Toys in the fall of 1974. “At the Nuremberg Trade Fair in 1975, I was sneaking around in the aisles and happened to meet Hym Shapiro from Fun World in South Africa. I knew him from my time at Galanite, and he invited me back to his hotel where the first business deal happened. This was the start of Viking Toys’ export business, which currently includes about 60 countries.” The following year, Viking Toys exhibited in Nuremberg for the first time; thus, 2015 will be the company’s 40th year at the fair. Kjellme guarantees that it will be celebrated with a big party. “Since I did not want to get off on the wrong foot with Galanite during the first few years, I focused on exporting. It was several years before Bert Andersson, purchasing manager at KF and a great authority in the toy industry, came to Nuremberg Trade Fair and asked if I wanted an order from him. And so it happened, but because my interest was in export, I transferred the Swedish sales to my brother, Lars, a few years later.” Much of the company’s success has revolved around the Nuremberg Trade Fair, now known as Spielwarenmesse. In 1977, Kjellme met the American company, International Playthings, which since then has been Viking Toys’ distributor in the U.S. The following year, he got in touch with Australian Modern Teaching Aids, which represents Viking in Australia and New Zealand.
20 • THE TOY BOOK
“We met many of our other distributors there, and most of them are still with us,” says Kjellme. “Viking Toys—made only in Sweden” was the company’s slogan for a long time. But as time passed, it ultimately became too costly to stay in Sweden. “I first began to travel around China in 1966 to evaluate the factories there, but their way of treating employees did not fit with our Swedish quality toys. Then we spent a week in Malaysia visiting a number of plastic factories. But their religion did not fit my beliefs,” says Kjellme. A few months later, Kjellme visited a dozen or so factories in Thailand, where he immediately felt more at home with both the religion and the way they treated their staff. “The decision was fairly easy to make because Thai Toy
Gösta Kjellme
DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015