Orthex


Oy Orthex Group Ab is a Finnish company that manufactures and markets plastic household products. Orthex's products include storage boxes and baskets, kitchenware and utensils, bins, buckets, laundry baskets and other household products, snow tools, flower pots and window boxes.

History

1950's

Aulis Kallonen bought his first plastic machine and began making plastic products in his family's basement in the 1950s. The first product was a shirt clip that was needed for packing men's shirts.

1956-1979 Orth-Plast

Orth-Plast, a Danish company, had founded a Finnish subsidiary, Orth-Export and Kallonen's company called Ruisku-Muovi started to make subcontracting for it. When Orth-Plast was on the verge of bankcrupty, Kallonen bought it in 1956 and got many valuable molds with it. In 1958 Kallonen's company moved from Helsinki to Lohja.
Initially, Kallonen's company was a subcontractor to the Danish company and used mostly molds it has purchased elsewhere. In the 1960s, the company began manufacturing plastic buckets and wash bowls. There was a huge shift from zinc buckets to plastic buckets in Finland and Orthex sold one million buckets a year. Kallonen purchased new plastic machines and expanded the factory around his home in Lohja several times.
In the mid-1960's, architect Väinö A. Valve worked as Orthex's designer.

1980-2008

In the early 1980s, Orthex decided to focus on household goods, and hired Laura Huhtela-Bremer to design for them.
Aulis Kallonen worked as the CEO of the company until 1995, after which he became the chairman of the board while his son Kari Kallonen started as the new CEO.
In 1999, Orthex had a turnover of FIM 60 million and it employed 91 people. In 2000, the company had 200 products with 1760 different sales items.

2009-2014 Orthex and Intera Partners

In the spring 2009 Kari Kallonen and his wife Tiina Kallonen sold the majority of the company to a Finnish investment company, Intera Partners, after which the company began to grow rapidly through acquisitions. In 2010, it acquired the Swedish kitchenware maker Sveico, which doubled the company's turnover. Sveico made metallic and plastic kitchen utensils like ladles and whisks. Kari Kallonen's successor as CEO was Alexander Rosenlew, who had led Colgate-Palmolive in Finland. Orthex molded more than ten million individual plastic household items a year.
In 2011, Orthex acquired Swedish Hammarplast Consumer AB and got access to its brands Hammarplast, Sarvis ja SmartStore. Orthex's turnover was more than doubled by the acquisition and it employed now about 300 people in Scandinavia. Orthex opened its first store in Lohja. Its turnover was about 60 million euros.

2015- Orthex and Sponsor Capital

In 2015, Orthex was acquired by Sponsor Capital, a Finnish venture capital firm, and Orthex's executive management team. Rosenlew continued in his CEO position. The reason for the acquisition was that Orthex wanted to concentrate on the internationalization with help of the experience got from Sponsor Capital. Orthex was then exporting its products to 40 countries.

Organization

Orthex has factories in Sweden and in Finland in Lohja.
The Orthex group consists of:
In the spring of 2019, the Lohja factory employed approximately 65 people. Orthex has two factory outlets, one in Lohja and the other one in Tingsryd.

Products

Orthex has manufactured two of the most widespread items in Finnish homes: the freezer box and the 10 liter bucket. According to a survey conducted by Ilta-Sanomat in the spring of 2019, the Orthex freezer box was owned by 89% of the over 100,000 respondents and 87% owned a 10-liter bucket made by Orthex.
Orthex's classic sled leads the Finnish sled market year after year.

Freezer box - the most widespread object in Finland

Orthex freezer box called "Jäänalle" was introduced in 1995, after which it has been sold 60 to 70 million units. The box was created to meet the price competition started by Orthex's competitor, Sarvis. Aulis Kallonen asked Huhtela-Bremer to design a new, better freezer box for Orthex. She started by thinking about what kind of freezer she would not like to use herself. In her design she for example rounded the corners of the box which allowed the content to freeze faster and more evenly and made it easier to spoon the contents from the box. The recess in the lid of the box allowed the boxes to be stacked on top of each other while there was still enough space between them to allow cold air to flow through. The box is also so sturdy that it keeps its shape even when hot liquid is poured into it and while the boxes are empty they can be stored inside each other. Compared to the earlier models the freezer box was easier to open, even with a thumb.
Simple but practical innovations of the box made it perfect for its purpose and it became a hit in Finland. Central retailers stopped selling competitors' products and sold millions of Orthex's freezer boxes each year. The new box not only won the market but also expanded them: it is also used as a lunch box.
The boxes are mostly sold in the late summer. Their demand follows the berry and mushroom crops. The most popular container size is 0.5 liters, accounting for almost half of the sales.
The box is made from granular polypropylene, which is a by-product of oil production. Orthex obtains it from the Borealis factory in Porvoo. Its lids are made of linear low density polyethylene.
In spring 2019, it was told that the freezer boxes will be changing from Orthex to the internationally more known Gastromax brand.

Recycled and bio-based products

Orthex has been manufacturing products from recycled plastic since the late 2000s. In 2019, bio- and recycled plastics accounted for 14% of the raw material used by Orthex and their aim was to increase the share to 20% within a year.

Products made from recycled material

Orthex has gradually increased its use of recycled plastic. In 2015, 378,000 kilos was being used in production, a year later 706,000 kilos. In 2017, Orthex started to use recycled plastics in the manufacture of 20 different products.
Orthex makes all of its flower pots and window boxes entirely from recycled plastic. It is also used in storage boxes and sleds, but due to regulations, recycled plastic cannot be used in products that are in contact with food. Orthex uses for example plastic packaging from retailers and also plastic packaging gathered from consumers that is refined at Fortum to new raw material. Fortum's refined plastic products and unused fishing nets collected from the sea by a Danish company called Plastix are refined as granulates.
When comparing the amount of carbon dioxide of virgin plastic and the plastic made from old fishing nets the amount of emissions is 82.4% smaller with the latter. Orthex is using these granulates for making green buckets. Orthex is organizing campaigns for collecting old buckets and other old household plastic items.

Bio-based plastic products

Orthex and Stora Enso have together designed a material that uses less virgin oil. Bio-based plastic is made from wood fibers and saccharum officinarum. These products contain 98% of biomaterials. The portion of wood fiber in the products varies between 30-50%, depending of the end product. For example, cutting boards contain about one-third of the wood fiber, 63% of the sugar-cane-based polyethylene while the rest is additives.
The new material is utilized in a range of kitchen products manufactured by Orthex, which include e.g. cutting boards and kitchen utensils with handles made of this biocomposite. The raw material for the new material is from Stora Enso's factory in Hylte in Sweden, it's a by-prodcuct of the pulp and wood products industry. The material is slightly harder than traditional plastic, dishwasher safe and can be recycled. The bio-composite products are sold e.g. by S Group, Kesko, ICA and Bergendahls.

Markets

Orthex focuses on household customers, which gives it a steady income. For example, in the 1990s recession in Finland it did not have to lay off its employees as Finns increased their cooking, baking and freezing.

Recognitions