The origins of Vikan’s approach to innovation

A.P. Pedersen’s early visits to local dairies became a lasting legacy

In his memoir, Life and Works, Vikan founder A.P. Pedersen recounts a number of experiences from the company’s earliest days and reflects upon these as an older man looking back on his life. Some of the stories he tells seem to have a special resonance for us at Vikan. They have become a part of our culture.

In one such story, Mr Pedersen recalls pondering how to win new business for his newly started brushmaker’s shop. “All the new dairies that had been popping up in the 1880s and ’90s used a lot of brushes, and it occurred to me that if I could make some quality brushes that were particularly useful to these dairies, there could be a lot of business in it,” he writes.

Pedersen then goes on to explain how a novel idea came to him. “It occurred to me that I would need to go visit the dairies to learn what they were using their brushes for,” he writes – setting the stage, as we’ll explain below, for a customer-focused approach to innovation that remains at the core of what Vikan does today.

Before long, the Vikan founder was out visiting dairies, where he would have “a thorough look around” before returning to his shop and thinking hard about how to make brushes that would be of particular use at the dairies he visited.

Then he got busy innovating. “I started experimenting with designs I thought the dairy workers would be happy to use,” Pedersen relates, before adding one more interesting detail. “When I’d finished making some of them, I’d send them out to local dairies for testing,” he says, before noting that the dairies were indeed pleased, and that this formed the basis for a business built on trust.