Skeppshult

The village of Skeppshult sits in the province of Småland in southern Sweden - a couple of hundred kilometres inland and south of Gothenburg.

It’s tiny - with less than 400 inhabitants and covering less than one square kilometre. Yet it’s home to two iconic industries - funky bicycle manufacturer Skeppshultcykeln, which started business in 1911, and Skeppshult Gjuteri AB, which opened a few years earlier and is now the last remaining foundry in Scandinavia. The names give you a clue about these brands. They’re resilient and anchored to their home patch with pride. 

Skeppshult puts it this way: “Today’s society moves at a fast pace; products become obsolete within a year and many are mass-produced, usually in the Far East. Skeppshult is based on a different premise; we have made our products by hand since 1906 according to ancient methods and traditions.”

The cast-iron cookware is handmade. Individual moulds are made from specially formulated sand compressed under several hundred tonnes of pressure. Recycled iron from scrap, castings and imperfect products is heated to a molten state in induction furnaces powered by renewable solar and hydro-generated electricity. It is carefully poured by the casting master into the moulds and left to set.