Maarud AS is a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

manufacturer of

snack food A snack is a small portion of food generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at home. Traditionally, snacks are ...

Structure

Their most well known product are various

potato chip A potato chip (North American English; often just chip) or crisp (British and Irish English) is a thin slice of potato that has been either deep fried, baked, or air fried until crunchy. They are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or app ...

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 tortillas, 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 nixtamalized corn, veg ...

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

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 same names also refer to the foodstuff produced by the expansion. A popcorn kernel's strong hull contains the se ...

. The company also has branches in Sweden, Finland and the Baltic states under the names "Estrella" and "Taffel" (in Lithuania). The Norwegian branch has the main office in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) 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 ...

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 village ...

Sør-Odal Sør-Odal is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Odalen. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Skarnes. Other villages in Sør-Odal include Disenå and Sander. T ...

. The Swedish company has the main office in Stockholm and production facilities at

Angered Angered ( ) is a 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 inhabitants. Transportation Angered is s ...

. The Baltic division has production facilities in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Tra ...

, Lithuania. 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 landowne ...

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. Ole Andreas Stang (30 May 1923 – 10 November 1998) was a Norwegian businessperson, who owned and led the company Maarud from 1960 to 1983. Personal life He was a son of landowner and industrialist Thomas Stang. He was a paternal grandson of land ...

took over the company in 1960. The company was sold to

Freia Freia may refer to: * Freyja, a Norse goddess * 76 Freia, a main belt asteroid * Freia (chocolate), a Norwegian chocolate brand See also * Freja (disambiguation) * Freya (disambiguation) Freya, or Freyja, is a goddess in Norse mythology. Frey ...

in 1983, and to

Kraft Foods The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015. A merger with Heinz, arra ...

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 KiMs is a Danish brand of chips and snacks, owned by the Orkla Group. The brand "KiM" was trademarked in 1960 by Odense Marcipanfabrik (a marzipan factory) in Denmark, but as a German cigarette brand of this name already existed, the name was ...

, 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 is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including le ...

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 is privately owned and has in excess of 8,000 empl ...

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