Eleiko and Billerud: Making the World Stronger Through Packaging
What if strong partnerships is the solution?
Eleiko is a Swedish company that develops and manufactures strength training equipment, and over 1000 world powerlifting records have been broken with an Eleiko barbell since 1967. What started as a small electrical appliance company became the world’s most reputable barbell and a constant leader in strength training innovation.
With sustainability, efficiency and right-sized packaging in mind, Eleiko partnered with Billerud to rethink their packaging.
“Since we started our relationship with Billerud, the packaging has now become a clearly-defined step in our development process. Billerud have really helped us also with explaining the importance of collaborating early in the development process to ensure you can achieve the best possible product.” -Magnus Nyberg, Supply Chain Manager, Eleiko
“Eleiko is a Swedish company. We’ve been around for more than 60 years in the strength training industry and the original product was actually a waffle iron. And then in 1957, there was a weight lifter working in the factory. This man had an idea to make the bar with a very special Swedish steel and over 1,000 world records have been broken with an Eleiko bar. It’s really the one bar that professional weightlifters favor.” Erik Blomberg, CEO, Eleiko
“Eleiko is a company that really wants to talk about kindness, and being kind to nature. We are today shipping a lot of equipment across the world and we want to make sure that we can do it efficiently, as well. We don’t want to ship a lot of air, and also want to make sure the cardboard is of good quality because we don’t want the equipment to be damaged when it arrives to the customer. Those things combined show that you need to think about the packaging and how you handle that aspect. I sit on the chair that maybe has the most impact on the environment and what we do. I’ve been traveling around and countries like China and Taiwan, and I’ve seen we’re not treating our Earth kindly. We basically reached out to Billerud and said, ‘We have a problem,’ and they said, ‘Well, we can help you with that, this is what we do.’ That was really something that gave us a bit of security, as well, and a bit of relief. I think Eleiko and Billerud can work together in making sure we make the world a stronger place. We have a lot of opportunities out there, and we have a lot of things we can improve here at Eleiko to make sure we can work towards that goal. That is something Eleiko and Billerud really need to continue to fight for and make sure that we can achieve good things for the environment, and the consumers, as well.” -Magnus Nyberg, Supply Chain Manager, Eleiko