Hackman's history

A young man from Bremen

When young Johan Friedrich Hackman arrived in the Hanseatic city of Vyborg from Lubeck in 1777, the Hackman family were already well-established as merchants in the city state of Bremen, also part of the Hanseatic League. The city of Vyborg, which at the time was part of Russia, was controlled with an iron fist by German merchant families. Because J.F. Hackman was a descendant of an old Hansa family, an affluent burger in Vyborg took him on as a bookkeeper.

Over the years Johan Friedrich Hackman and his business partner Johan Ignatius founded the Hackman trading house in Vyborg. Initially the business sold salt and colonial products but it soon became Vyborg’s largest timber exporter.

Quick moves and real estate deals

J.F. Hackman was a very focused and determined young man. Despite the war raging between Sweden and Russia, in a short space of time he managed to create a highly successful business. Before his death in 1807, J.F. Hackman purchased what was then an insignificant industrial site in Sorsakoski in Finland, with a sawmill, mill and brick factory. Over the next 50 years Johan Friedrich’s widow, Marie ran and systematically expanded the enterprise by acquiring extensive amounts of forest and land in Savo in Eastern Finland.

Hackman became renowned for its good name and in the mid-19th century was a byword locally for keeping its promises and paying what it owed.

Cutlery manufacturing gathers momentum, 1876–1890

In 1876, Hackman – now managed by Johan Friedrich the younger – started producing cutlery in a small village outside the city of Vyborg. Most of the output was exported to Russia, but the intention was to expand the market to span the whole of Europe. In 1885, the factory employed almost 100 people. The name of the village, Nurmi, has become synonymous for many Finns with ice-skates, which Hackman also produced here.

In order to distinguish one set of cutlery from another, the handles were made of different materials, ranging from wood to deer antler. Back in 1880, the sets of cutlery were not given names, only numbered codes.

A new company, 1891–1923

The company’s entire production was moved to Sorsakoski at the beginning of the 1890s. An entire small community had sprung up around the factory in Sorsakoski, with the factory itself, housing and a school. The cutlery was still produced using foreign templates.

After the First World War, Sorsakoski increased its exports to places as far flung as China and South America. In 1902, Hackman started producing very inexpensive cutlery, forged from a single piece of metal. It was around this time that the Art Nouveau movement swept through Europe and naturally also left its mark on cutlery design. A special technique had to be introduced for manufacturing the handles, to allow the reproduction of the newly fashionable delicate decorative motifs.

The social reformers of the early 20th century stressed the importance of a comfortable and more hygienic home environment as a cultural factor. Nickel-plated utensils were cheap and easy to care for, and an increasing number of people were able to use cutlery daily, instead of reserving it just for Sundays. At the beginning of the 1920s an innovation arrived on the market that revolutionised the future of cutlery. Stainless steel had arrived.

A period of growth in the 1930s and 1940s

When the Sorsakoski factory started manufacturing cutlery from stainless steel in 1923, a period of vigorous expansion followed. Production methods were developed by mechanising most of the production processes. By the mid-1930s, the factory employed approximately 400 people. Stainless steel was joined by another new material, “cellulose”, resembling bone. In fact, this was celluloid plastic, and it replaced bone and ebony in making handles.

At the end of the 1930s, the practice of naming the different cutlery ranges was adopted, and ranges entitled Simpukka (Shell), Chippendale and Ornament were born. It was also at this time that spoons of different sizes were added to the cutlery ranges, not previously manufactured at Sorsakoski. A complete set of cutlery now numbered 22–28 pieces.

Advances in craftsmanship at Sorsakoski

In 1935, a primary school and a vocational school were established in the factory grounds, in order to improve the workers’ competence and skills. School expansion plans, however, came to an abrupt end when, at the start of the Second World War, the Sorsakoski factory, like most other factories in Finland, was ordered to turn its production to the war effort.

The Hackman Studio 1950–

During the 1950s, Hackman’s product range was supplemented with the introduction of coffee pots, pots and pans and other kitchen implements. Cheap Asian imports arrived on the shores of Scandinavia in the 1960s. To retain its market position Hackman was forced to modernise its product range. The job was given to established designers, such as Kaj Franck, Adolf Babel and Bertel Gardberg.

Finnish designers reaped success and fame in various exhibitions, both in Finland and Europe. Bertel Gardberg, for example, received an award at the Milan Triennale of 1957 for his Finnline range.

Sorsakoski became the flagship of Nordic cutlery design. Once the rest of the world noticed the small factory hidden away in the far North, the orders started flooding in, from Dansk Design and the German WMF, among others. The most pressing concern for Hackman, however, was to come up with a strong product for the highly competitive domestic market. The solution was created in 1967 and it was christened Savonia. Designed by Adolf Babel, this range of cutlery combined innovative design and the highest quality, and the result was an unparalleled success, selling its millionth piece a mere year later.

A period of acquisitions

The Hackman Group proper was formed to focus operations towards a uniting Europe. By 1992 the company had bought tens of businesses whose sectors have remained part of the group or been sold on.

In 1990 Hackman celebrated its 200th anniversary still in the ownership of its founding family. In that same year it bought the Arabia factory, the Iittala and Nuutajärvi glassworks and from neighbouring Sweden the Gustavsberg and Rörstrand ceramics factories.

The new millennium brought a new approach. Hackman’s recycling weeks, now an annual tradition, were launched for the first time in 2000.

In 2004 the Italian ALI Group bought the entire shareholding of the Hackman Group. The ALI Group retained the professional cookware manufacturer Metos and the Iittala homeware division was sold to the management and ABN Amro Capital. Hackman remained a cookware brand. In 2007 the Iittala Group was bought by Fiskars.

2005 saw the launch of the Matador product range in which Hackman was the first to launch a durable, ceramic coating, Ceratec, on the market.

By the end of 2009 the Hackman product range had been almost completely updated.