The idea was to offer a kind of start-up package that would cover all the basic needs in the kitchen when starting or restarting a home.
Already in 1980, Ingvar Kamprad’s great interest in cooking had led to kitchen-related collaborations. At a cooking event with famous Swedish chef Carl Butler in the kitchen at IKEA Hotell in Älmhult in 1980, Ingvar announced that they would be making a cookbook together. And inspired by the wave of successful new shops in the UK and North America that sold ‘professional kitchen equipment’ for home chefs, Ingvar saw a business opportunity for IKEA. Product developer Sven-Arne Svensson and his team were given a challenge by Ingvar: develop a cookshop! Designer Knut Hagberg at IKEA had previously been a chef, and he was able to help out with product development and design. So too was silversmith Carl-Gustaf Jahnsson, who had already designed the RONDO series for IKEA.
So the early years of the 1980s saw the gradual evolution of the kitchen range, and in 1984 Sven-Arne was given a new challenge by Ingvar which would lead to the STARTBOX product. All the contents in the box of basic equipment for a new kitchen had to be tested and approved in line with Swedish Consumer Agency regulations. Everything would be sold individually in the stores’ cookshop, but would also be part of a single package.
“Ingvar made it very clear that the start-box should be at least 25 to 30 per cent cheaper than buying the various items individually,” said Sven-Arne. “So the tricky bit was communicating this to consumers when the product appeared in stores – the fact that we sold the products individually if you didn’t need the whole box, but also sold the box far cheaper if you did. We then also made a similar box with glasses, crockery and cutlery, so we sold two boxes – one for the kitchen and one for the table.”
STARTBOX No 1 KÖK was presented in the 1987 IKEA catalogue at a price of 115 euro. Bought individually, the products would have cost 30 euro more. So Ingvar’s requested discount ended up being just over 20%.
IKEA had 17 different suppliers and 14 supply countries that delivered 50 items, which all had to be packed in one place.
“The start-box wasn’t finished until the final item was in place. And in the first five years we sold the box, we didn’t have a single quality-related return,” said Sven-Arne Svensson.
