O. Mustad & Søn AS

Mustad can trace its roots back to 1832 in Vardal. Hans Schikkelstad (1789–1843), a farmer, established the factory "Brusveen Spiger- og Staltradfabrikk" for the production of nails, steel wire and various metal products. Later, Skikkelstad's son-in-law Ole Hovelsen Mustad (1810–84), took over the company with his son Hans Mustad (1837–1918) and changed its name to "O. Mustad" and later "O. Mustad & Søn". The company was headquartered in the small village of Gjøvik (Norway), an area with poor infrastructures where transportation was an obstacle to most type of supplies.

Growing to other markets

In spite of the negative conditions and the pessimistic visions of the Norwegian Department of Interior ("The difficulty in competing with foreign factories means that industry will never succeed in this country"), by 1860 Ole Mustad led his company to a primary position in the production of small metal products like fencing wire, nails, pins, fish hooks, horseshoe nails, shipbuilding nails, paper clips, thumb tacks and a series of other metallic wire-based products.

Over the years, Mustad was a crucial part of Gjøvik and the region as a large number of the population was involved with the company and its many products. In addition to products made of metal wire, Mustad tested the waters of many other markets. Ovens and waffle presses were in production for many years and are still found today. For over 100 years, Mustad also competed in the butter industry in Norway.

Finding focus

A key to the company's success was the efforts made by Mathias Topp, a carpenter turned inventor who designed and created a machine to create hooks automatically and quickly. His first successful machine produced hooks efficiently and quicker than ever before. Feeding wire into the machine led to a cut, bent, barbed, and pointed hook. Knowing the importance of this invention to the company, Topp and the Mustad family worked to keep the secret by, instead of ordering a patent, restricting workers from getting near the machines and signing non-disclosure agreements. By refining and industrializing the manual production of fish hooks in 1877, the company managed to become a global market leader in just a few years.

The Core of Gjøvik

The growth and successes of the 1870s were followed by recession, mirroring the overall European crisis. The stagnation of the building activities resulted in a decreasing demand for nails. Hans Mustad, who had taken the management over, experienced a very critical time which brought him to the suspension of all payments in 1879. Fear took hold of creditors and employees, as so many other companies had gone bankrupt in the same period. Employees continued working without payment for 2 years. They received "Mustad banknotes" instead: the notes acted as written acknowledgments from Mustad and were accepted by shops in Gjøvik. The whole debt including interests was paid back by July 1882 and all creditors got their check.

Since then, the company assumed wider responsibilities over employees and their families: children were provided schools and several recreational and welfare activities were offered. Hans Mustad's social disposition attracted attention of the press that started visiting the factory premises and its schools, band, choir, library and shop.

Wars

These years were also crucial for the international development of the company. The obstacles at the time were mainly protectionism and tariffs:

the decision was taken to start production within the international markets with the biggest potential. A nail factory was established in Finland in 1886, shortly followed by horseshoe nail factories in France (Duclair, 1891) and Sweden (Dalsland, 1898). Just before World War I, Europe consisted of five great powers (the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia), plus another two nations were large consumers of horseshoe nails (Italy and Spain). In 1913 Mustad was established in all of them with the exception of Russia. Localisation criteria for the plants were mainly the access to energy, raw materials and transportation.