Maarud AS is a Norwegian manufacturer of

snack food A snack is a small portion of Human food, food generally Eating, eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including Food packaging, packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at ho ...

Structure

Their most well known product are various

potato chip Potato chips (North American English and Australian English; often just chip) or crisp (British English and Hiberno-English) are thin slices of potato (or a thin deposit of potato paste) that has been deep frying, deep fried, baking, baked, ...

s, branded as "Maarud Potetgull" (lit. 'potato gold'), but the company also produces other foods such as

tortilla chip A tortilla chip is a snack food made from corn tortilla, which are cut into triangles and then fried or baked (alternatively they may be discs pressed out of corn masa then fried or baked). Corn tortillas are made of Nixtamalization , nixtamali ...

peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), goober pea, pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics by small and large ...

s, and

popcorn Popcorn (also called popped corn, popcorns, or pop-corn) is a variety of corn kernel which expands and puffs up when heated. The term also refers to the snack food produced by the expansion. It is one of the oldest snacks, with evidence of p ...

. The company also has branches in Sweden, Finland and the Baltic states under the names "Estrella" and "Taffel" (in

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

). The Norwegian branch has the main office in

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

and production facilities are at

Disenå Disenå is a village in Sør-Odal Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The main part of the village is located south of the river Glomma, about southwest of the village of Skarnes. The Kongsvingerbanen railway line passes through the villag ...

Sør-Odal Sør-Odal is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Odalen. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Skarn ...

. The Swedish company has the main office in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

and production facilities at

Angered Angered ( ) is a Boroughs and districts of Gothenburg, borough of Gothenburg Municipality in Västra Götaland County, Sweden. Angered is the biggest Million Programme area in Gothenburg, and one of the biggest in the country, with 60,000 inha ...

. The Baltic division has production facilities in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

. The company has 201 employees.

History

The company traces back to 1928, when

Thomas Stang Thomas Stang (27 November 1897 – 5 January 1982) was a Norwegian forester and businessperson. He is known as founder of the company Maarud, and also as husband of actress Wenche Foss. Personal life He was born in Kristiania as a son of landow ...

of the Maarud farm at Disenå started selling farm products. Production of potato chips under the brand name "potetgull" started in 1936, after Stang had visited the United States. Around 1950, Maarud purchased industrial equipment for larger scale chip production, and the company enjoyed progress in the 1960s, helped by the advent of television. In the 1970s, Maarud became the largest snack food producer in Scandinavia. Thomas Stang's son Ole A. Stang, Jr. took over the company in 1960. The company was sold to

Freia Freia may refer to: * Freyja In Norse mythology, Freyja (Old Norse "(the) Lady") is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future). Freyja is the owner of the neckl ...

in 1983, and to

Kraft Foods Kraft Foods Group, Inc. was an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate (company), conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. on October 1, 2012, and was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz on July ...

in 1992. After operating as a daughter company of Kraft for several years, the company merged with Kraft and Freia in 2002, becoming Kraft Foods Norge. Under Kraft, Maarud had trouble maintaining their position in the market. In the tough competition against KiMs, Maarud's share of the Norwegian potato chip market fell from 50% in 2001, to 33% in 2008, although the increase in consumption of snack foods meant that production at Maarud remained stable. In 2008, Kraft sold the company to the Norwegian

private equity firm A private equity firm or private equity company (often described as a financial sponsor) is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of a Startup company, startup or of an existin ...

Herkules Capital. The sale was welcomed by both local and national politicians in Norway, as well as the employees of Maarud. In 2014, Herkules sold Estrella Maarud to the

Intersnack Intersnack Group GmbH & Co. KG is a German snack food company that annually produces around 600,000 tonnes of snacks including potato chips, nuts, baked products and specialty snacks. The company made its first potato chips in 1968. The company ...

Group, which combines various international brands of salted snacks.

References

External links

Maarud
Norwegian company website
Estrella
Swedish company website
Estrella Baltics
Lithuanian company website Brand name snack foods Food and drink companies of Norway {{food-company-stub

Structure

History

See also

References

External links