Revised requirements for furniture in the Nordic Swan Ecolabel

The requirements for furniture as set by the Nordic Swan Ecolabel have been revised and will be implemented during 2021 and 2022. The new requirements generally have a larger focus on circular economy, the climate and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

What does this mean to KVIST?

The current requirements are officially expired on June 30 2022. Before this date, KVIST will have to make sure all documentation for the currently approved materials and products is updated and approved again according to the new requirements. Many of the current requirements are still a part of the new requirements but new specific criteria have been added, which we will make sure are also fulfilled with help from our suppliers.

The new requirements will expire December 31 in 2025.

What does it mean to KVIST’s customers?

If you are currently considering applying for the Nordic Swan Ecolabel on furniture products or know that you will apply within a very short timeframe, the current requirements are still in effect until they expire on June 30 2022. However, it is generally recommended to put the application on hold until the Nordic Ecolabelling Portal is introduced on March 15, 2021 as the portal will be the central platform for providing documentation to Ecolabelling Denmark according to the new requirements. In June 2021, Ecolabelling Denmark will start to process the documentation that has been uploaded to the portal.

As a part of the new requirements, paper cord has been added as a material category. This opens the possibility of certifying products made with webbed paper cord, which has previously not been an option. Furthermore, the requirements for surface treatment have been modified expected to be giving possibilities of certifying more treatments.

It is not expected that there will be limitations as to what materials are possible to certify due to the new requirements. However, we will achieve much more experience with the new requirements when the collection of documentation starts. 

March 2021

The year 2020 in KVIST

What a challenging year!

All over the Europe, a lot of companies expierenced the consequences of pandemic situation. The first quarter of the year KVIST kept by the budget. However, after a good first quarter, we experienced a decline in order intake in the beginning of summer. After the summer period, everything appeared to be within the usual and autumn 2020 brought us the skyrocketed order intake again. At the same time we had worked with the strategy and plan to follow our customer decline in order to contribute with our knowledge and resources. These times showed even more how essential it is to keep close collaboration, relations and close communication with both our customers and suppliers.

Situation for our customers

Throughout the autumn, we have seen a stable development, where we have largely invested at the expected level. Most customers have returned to the "normal" level - some slightly above - someone a little below. We have been able to see that customers who are very dependent on hotels and restaurants was severely affected. Customers who largely base their business model on e-commerce have pretty much all positive development.

The winter came with some difficulties

Several countries are challenged by COVID19, which does make difficulties in the supply chain. Unfortunately, the beginning of winter came with the dramatic shortage of foam from upholstery suppliers, that caused problems overall Europe, prolonging lead time. Our procurement team worked to find the substitute supplier in order to not affect our customers.

With the confidence we can say, that we came out of this year even stronger than before and look bright into the future. The COVID19 pandemic has changed the relationships in our value chain, where we experience more information sharing between KVIST , our suppliers and customers.

December 2020

Fresh perspective

KVIST have recently taken the part in the exciting program called Future Talent Denmark, where through a three-day internship students have the possibility to get insights into the company, its culture, and learn about the industry. "We had the pleasure to meet and work with very talented students - Lukas from Germany and Yufen from China. Even though students worked with us only for three days, we actually managed to get an insight and general screening for circular economy principles”, comments HQSE Manager in KVIST, Michael Eirup. They both study at University of Southern Denmark, where Lukas studies master degree of Environmental and Resource Management and Yufen master degree of English studies.

During the internship students had to take closer look on circular economy at KVIST together with KVIST employees. “We got to discuss a lot of the topic with KVIST professionals and got the insights in the processes and general understanding of how things actually works in such an industry”, says Lukas. During their 3 days internship they did a case study in a context of circular economy and practical proposals in terms of compliance and communication. “It was a great opportunity to get an insights into Danish company and to find the way to apply our theoretical knowledge”, says Yufen.

In the picture from the left: Dorte– responsible for Environment and Compliance at KVIST,  students Yufen and Lukas, Alise – responsible for Communications at KVIST.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            November 2020

FSC® certified supply chain

At KVIST we are committed to bring the best value to the customer and we achieve that in collaboration with our suppliers to ensure that our supply chain is being updated. As the demand for sustainable solutions is growing, we have initiated changes in our supply chain in order to be able to deliver 100% FSC® certified products or products only made by FSC certified wood where possible. We are proud to make an effort to keep our supply chain and stakeholders stronger and to make powerfull cooperation to support our customers. We are happy to see that our partners are following KVIST and our customers initiative to completely switch to FSC certified raw materials. We are certain, that by working closely together, we are ensuring that long-term partnership has a successful outcome for both ends of the supply chain – to our suppliers and to our customers.

July 2020

COVID-19 Safety measures in production

KVIST supports the recommendations from Health Authority's and our industry organization to ensure protection of health and safety of our employees. As a result of many precaution actions and cooperation among departments and employees, we have come very well through the first phase of pandemic without any need to close or stop the production or having our employees infected with the Covid-19.

One of the initiatives was the decision that our production employees should wear face masks during the working hours in the most crowded locations. In order to use competencies in our upholstery unit, we have decided to sew protection masks ourselves and up til now more than 400 pcs are made and given to employees.

Another initiative made by precaution recommendations, was to set up the device for dispensing protective equipment  in one of the production sites. Now employees are able to receive remedies by scanning their chip and selecting the appropriate remedy. It is planned to install more equipment in the nearest future.

July 2020

Walnut penetrates the market

Growing demand on walnut material, that lately has been used in several special editions of all know chair series, making the point of walnut as increasingly frequent choice for furniture.

Walnut wood is hard, heavy, resilient and very beautiful. However, walnut wood is also described as challenging material due to it’s uniqueness in the wood structure; there are no possibility to have two wood structures alike.  From the other hand, that makes walnut very unique and distinctive as two walnut made furniture will never be the same, as walnut characterises as living material in very high grade. 

Fresh perspective and insights on processes

From now and until summer 2020 we will five students who will be making projects in cooperation with representatives from KVIST. In 2020 we will have more focus at UNs sustainable development goals, and the cooperation with students are a task related to it: #9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation and #4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning – the cooperation is for that reason advantageous in several ways.

It gives KVIST extra resources to investigate where and how we can improve our company and be even smarter in the future – which means foster innovation in KVIST.

At the same time, it can be seen as a give back to the community where students get an opportunity to use theory in practice and increasing their learning – in the long run this can be seen as an advantage for KVIST, our suppliers, our customers and our general surroundings.

Students from Copenhagen Business School, Business Academy Southwest and University of South Denmark will be working on: Analysis of internal and external factors and how procurement can improve KVIST and customer value; Analysis of marketing and communication strategy and Organizational network analysis. We are really excited to se the results and looking forward to a successful cooperation!

February 2020

Employee competition Kvist in the World

For several months Kvist employees were sending in photos from their holidays, shopping tours, stays or events in order to be a part in competition called Kvist in the World. To be within the competition and to win the main prize – tour to se production site in Latvia and Denmark, participants should have send photos with the furniture made by Kvist that is showcased in public places. The response was great and photos we received were coming from all across the Europe.

The main idea was to build the understanding about our customers, their markets, and the actual people who is sitting on the chairs and in that way to build a strong attraction to the product and to promote pride of what they are doing.

February 2020

Annual design event - 3days of design

Copenhagen was pulsating with creativity, design and people, when the capital was celebrating design from 23rd – 25th of May. Kvist Industries have joined the community of 3daysofdesign by representing its customers with beautiful and known designer pieces from Hans J.  Wegner and Poul M. Volther.

The FSC Design Award winners Anna Ohmsen and Emma Bukhave at the event showcased the very first prototype of their lamp – Frames. “It was an amazing experience to meet people and introducing with the lamp and telling the story behind the product. It was really a pleasure!” says Emma.

The exhibition was created in collaboration between furniture companies, the Association of Danish Wood and Furniture Industries and the magazine Ark Journal, which has served as a curator.

See You all next year!

 FSC® certified lamp Frames is ready to be produced

In the beginning of summer 2019, FSC Design Award winning duo, Emma Bukhave and Anna Ohmsen visited Sia KVIST in Latvia where according to the main prize provided by Kvist - the young designers had the opportunity to develop their design for the lamp and prepare it for production, make sales-ready product that is produced with FSC® certified wood.

In collaboration with Kvist Industries experts at R&D department, the designers received the very first prototype of the lamp. Anna Ohmsen – one of the designers – shared her thoughts about the process and visit to Kvist factory in Latvia. “That was a very special feeling, when we received the first prototype” remembers Anna. “It was pleasure to work with the product development team and thanks to their creative suggestions we were able to make the product ready and made by the highest standards possible. Now we are waiting to be done with the smaller size version of the lamp”. 

Lamp Frames – a simple repeated form – playing as much with the light as with the viewer. The idea behind the form is more important than the scale – so the possibilities are many.

The lamp is dynamic and functional and can be transformed from having a three dimensional form to having a two dimensional form. The thoughts behind Frames are commercial and it can be developed and designed in many materials. Thanks to its dimensionality, lamp can be transported more efficient and in space-saving possibility.

New CNC machine in Latvia

Production in Latvia continues to grow and constantly developing technology to meet the evolving demands of our customers.

The key benefit of the CNC machining process is its ability to produce considerable quantities of precision-crafted parts and products in a variety of materials, all of which will have the true properties of that particular material, making them suitable for form, fit and function testing. Thanks to long tradition, know-how and modern machinery, Kvist is able to produce parts with high precision and the new CNC is sufficient resource to continue the growth.

Hall manager says: “That is a huge step forward in order to improve time to market as a means of meeting customer demand. We are really looking forward to fulfil the expectations!”

Stockholm Furniture Fair 2019

Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair continues to grow and strengthen its position as the world’s leading event for Scandinavian design and we have once again been a part of this development and been there to support our customer base. 

This year we chose to arrange our KVIST stand in three different areas in order to introduce our customers and visitors with our wide range of services with a focus on sustainability and environment. We divided our stand into three areas – sustainability and environment, customer service & know-how and Supplychain & Services. Our commitment to sustainability in most of the processes of services follows from a constant focus on providing solutions that protect people and brands, promote health, and safeguard the environment. In regarding to support our customers and to meet their demands and requirements, we set sustainability and sharing of knowledge as on of our priorities in the future.

2018 year in review: Kvist Industries achieves turnover of 400 million Danish kroner

The financial statement for 2018 shows DKK 405 million in revenue and profit before tax of DKK 11 million. That is large growth compared to 2017; when revenue was DKK 349 million and the profit before tax only DKK 2, 5 million.

“If you look at the fact that we have had quite a large turnover growth in recent years, we can also see that we have had problems on the bottom line the previous years. But that goes is the right path now - both with growth in revenue and on the bottom line”, says director Jens Bach Mortensen.

Future in 2019 looks quite positive keeping up the budget in the first quarter and management predicts a double-digit growth in 2019. “Even though there are slightly dark clouds around, we continue to work hard on all fronts to hold on and create new projects”.

New look - new modern work place

Production department of mechanical processing - hall 4 is being finished with renovations. The production unit is now broader, brighter and got brand new, comfortable workstations.

The aim with renovation was to gather the basic processing/handling process and locate it under one roof in order to become more efficient and shorten lead-time of finished units between the production halls as well as to equip the production hall with new upgraded sanding stations. Modernization of unit created possibility of improvements for working conditions for sanding employees, as well as better surface conditions in pre-treatment phase.

Donation to TabFab

Tab Fab is business incubator that has been created and actively acts as the center of creative industries at the old Tobacco Factory in Riga, which provides a supportive ecosystem in the creative industries sector, while supporting business aspects such as innovation, creativity and advanced technology. The old Tobacco Factory has previously been owned by Denmark, and now rebuilt into an incubator for creative industries.

Kvist Industries supports innovation, design and creativity!

Connecting the dots

In order to fulfil customer’s increasing demands and make a step forward to them, Kvist have initiated Customer satisfaction study to improve the knowledge about their closest customers and gain a structured overview about their needs, requirements and expectations.

Study analysis will contribute added value to the relationships that are involved in customer satisfaction, service and product quality.

The study is taking place gradually during the summer.

Kvist Sia gave a special Christmas gift to charity

In December, Kvist Sia received a lot of great gifts from customers and partners, but instead of keeping the gifts, Kvist Sia chose to auction the presents and give the money to charity.

"We received about 38 presents, which we auctioned off to charity. To our surprise, it was well received and we had great response, more than expected. The biddings where high and we are very happy with the result", says Sanda Vinberga, Office Administrator, Kvist Sia.

The gifts were a mix of wine, Whiskey, boxes of candy, large wall calenders, and candles to mention a few. The most attractive gifts were a wooden tie and bow that was well admired. The biddings went top high on these two masterpieces.

At the end og the bidding contest, Kvist Sia received the total amount of 590 EUR. The money was given to the Latvian charity organization DOD PIECI in Latvia.

Visiting IMM Cologne 2017

IMM Cologne is the first international interior show hosted in 2017. Kvist Industries was not a part of the fair exhibition, but we have been visiting the fair to find out the last trends in the industry. We were very glad to see in the showcase some of our customers and the furniture that we produce for them. The most important trend in the interior design world is represented by freedom and creativity. Raw materials are combined despite textures, colors or place in the house. In the furniture industry, wood is on the top wish list even if contemporary furniture tends to combine it with different materials such as plastic or metal for new aesthetics. The usage of wood furniture is expanding in design interiors, in offices and houses from the living room to the bathroom. Our overall impression is that the fair is growing every year in both visitors and exhibitors and the atmosphere makes the fair very special.

Below you can see some of the furniture that we have been a part of the developing and manufacturing process