KALLES x Designtorget

KALLES x Designtorget

Designtorget launches a collection in collaboration with Kalles Kaviar, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary!

In connection with the 70th anniversary of the iconic smoked caviar in a tube, Designtorget is launching an exclusive collection consisting of ten products. The collection was developed in collaboration with Kalles Kaviar with the goal of reflecting the brand’s cheerful, warm, and playful spirit.

Kalles Kaviar is much more than just a spread—it’s a Swedish icon that has been on Swedish breakfast tables since 1954. It’s also a common reference when giving an example of something typically Swedish. The strong brand is instantly recognizable by its color combination, shape, or the figure of the boy Kalle. The collection is based on the iconic tube’s color and shape, as well as its natural place on the breakfast table. Since Kalle is turning 70, the motifs also capture the spirit of a breakfast party!

About the collection

When Orkla contacted us to discuss a potential collaboration ahead of Kalle’s anniversary, we immediately felt it was a perfect match for Designtorget. Kalle, with his beloved and playful spirit, fits perfectly with our vision as a marketplace that makes design accessible and encourages creativity. Designtorget’s CEO, Emma Klintbo Klingspor, on the collaboration.

The collection consists of a breakfast tray, coasters, a kitchen towel, drinking glasses, and a fabric bag featuring caviar-inspired illustrations by Mathilde Ahlström. The ceramics studio Swedenland Ceramic has also designed a vase and mugs where the shape of the ceramics reflects the characteristic pattern of a caviar strand. The collection also includes a red towel holder (Pluring), which symbolizes the red cap on the Kalles Kaviar tube.

The collection launches on September 17, 2024, both in stores and online.

About Kalles

Few could have imagined what a success story it would become, back on that day in the early 1950s when factory manager Gunnar Stensby presented a smoked caviar at the headquarters. He was met with a fair amount of skepticism—yes, perhaps even laughter. But after just one year, a million tubes of Kalles Kaviar had been sold, and the success was a fact.

Today, 70 years later, a tube of Kalles Kaviar is sold every three seconds, which means that every year we consume over 10 million tubes of Kalles Kaviar.

The Kalles tubes are adorned with the same Kalle as 70 years ago, who is actually a real person, Carl Ameln. Carl was 6 years old when Kalles was launched and the son of the then-CEO of ABBA. As a thank-you for letting Kalles use his face, Carl gets free caviar for the rest of his life, and they still deliver tubes to his door today.

So what makes Kalles so special? The exact recipe is a well-kept secret, but the caviar is made from cod roe, potatoes, sugar, salt, and tomato puree. Another unique aspect of Kalles is that the cod roe is stored in barrels under optimal conditions for the ingredients to mature in Orkla Foods Sweden’s mountain caverns in Kungshamn on the west coast. Kalles is then prepared and packaged at the company’s adjacent fish processing facility.