Swedish steel has bite!

Submitted by Carolyn Stanley on 24 November 2017

Sweden has the world’s most advanced steel; prioritising and developing products with high added value, whether small or large, creates employment, and if for export, a surplus for Sweden’s trade balance. We Swedes love gardening, where material properties are important.

Sawing, cutting and digging the ground with one and the same tool sounds like a challenge where advanced steel ought to offer the optimal solution! This was their idea when Anja Hellström and partner Anton Schneider contacted Triple Steelix to discuss possible ways forward.

“Our goal was to produce an advanced gardening knife as traditionally used in Japan. We wanted to produce a professional tool made of Swedish material, with Swedish steel at the centre, produced in Sweden. We work in gardening and growing and would regularly come up against work situations which could be better managed if only we had advanced tools and implements for small-scale gardening and growing, says Anja.

“We want to produce products with sustainable production technology and materials. We also want to work towards conscious and sustainable consumption. Because we are a small company, we can communicate directly with the end-user and so awaken understanding in consumers about the value of products and why it is important to choose responsibly-produced material.” With help from Triple Steelix and Vinnova among others, we have produced a gardening knife with a handle and leather sheath. Sandvik’s 12C27 stainless steel was finally chosen for its quality, the reason being that it is Swedish, stainless (important for gardening) and recycled. Anja and Anton have now started up Mojave Grönt and are raring to go with a first trial run of 500 knives. Material and production sub-contractors are local for the most part.

“Our next objective is to transfer a part of production to our own workshops in order to be able to develop more products. This should lead to greater local employment over time, something that we consider important”, Anja and Anton explain.

“We wish the company good luck in its establishment as we see that advanced steel can add much value to businesses that have strong connections right across the board to circular and sustainable economies, says Larz Ignberg, Triple Steelix, who has been following the project from an early stage.

The gardening knife was launched at Ståldagen 2017 [Steel Day 2017], the industry’s joint Visionary Day on 7 November at IVA in Stockholm. 180 people from local and government authorities, politics, organisations, companies and academia took part.

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