The IKEA meatball – ‘round since 1985
1985. Mix tapes are a thing.
Live Aid captivates the world,the "The Color Purple" premieres,
Boris Becker wins Wimbledon,
Gorbachev becomesthe leader of the Soviet Union.
And at IKEA, restaurants struggle to alwaysserve customers in a quick and smooth way.
We needed somethingthat was easy to serve,
tasty and affordable to the many.
Quite a challenge actually.
Or, as Ingvar Kamprad put it: "It’s toughto do business with hungry stomachs".
Severin threw himself into the job ofcreating the perfect IKEA meatball recipe.
It involved long and passionatediscussions with his colleagues
and with Ingvar Kamprad himself.
Over the course of ten months,Severin hardly left the kitchen.
He put his heart and soulinto finding the right recipe.
Hello, me.
Mm, this is good.
It took almost a year of hard work
until the restaurants could start servingthe IKEA version of the Swedish meatball.
Every time a new IKEA store opened,people lined up in thousands.
And people still do today.
For me the meatballis so much the IKEA culture.
It’s convenient, it’s Swedishand pretty much for everybody.
And it’s still served in all the restaurantsin the IKEA stores in the world,
joined by a whole familyof different kinds of meatballs.
So that’s the story of our tasty icon,the IKEA meatball.
Round, since 1985.
Meet Severin Sjöstedt, the chef behind the original IKEA meatball recipe. Back in 1985 Severin threw himself into the job of creating the perfect IKEA meatball, a challenge that involved long and passionate discussions with his team and Ingvar Kamprad. “Back then, guests in our restaurants were not served in a smooth and quick way and the quality was not good enough,” explains Severin. “It was a serious problem because as Ingvar Kamprad put it: ‘It’s tough to do business with hungry stomachs’”. It took Severin nearly one year to create the perfect recipe. Today more than a billion IKEA meatballs are sold every year. They’re very IKEA – they’re convenient, they’re Swedish, and they’re for the many.