In the beginning of the 1960’s I applied for a job, advertised in the morning paper. A company was looking for a salesperson to sell slaughter products from Denmark to the Swedish market and I soon after got the job. Apart from slaughter products, the company also worked with import of camembert cheese to Sweden and pioneered the idea of a Cash & Carry in the West of Sweden. After only a year the company went bankrupt and some Danish slaughterhouses asked me to represent them in Sweden, which I accepted.

In 1963, at the kitchen table with a telephone and a typewriter, the company AB Sten Davidsson was founded. In the beginning we supplied the sausage industry specifically, but not long after we traded a variety of pork products. In the 1970’s we began importing high quality beef from Australia and suddenly we had a new clientele - restaurant wholesalers. We also started up with beef from Yugoslavia and the US to the Swedish market.

Due to the long practice of government food subsidies in Sweden, there was an enormous domestic production of beef and pork. This system was untenable and when prices of meat were gradually raised a vast surplus of meat occurred. To reduce this “meat mountain” the produce was sold to countries outside of Europe and Davidsson swiftly caught on to create new markets. During the ten years to come, our predominant trade was export of Swedish and Finnish pork and beef to countries like Mexico, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.

When Sweden joined the EU in 1995, conditions for meat trade were radically changed. We were now allowed to import meat from countries which had never before been approved for Sweden, and it was also made possible to bring in chicken.

Today we do both imports and exports and our many years of experience in the international market have given us vast knowledge about various markets and our clients’ requirements. Thanks to our experience and flexibility we have quickly found new solutions, for example when animal diseases prohibit trade to or from certain areas.

Sten Davidsson