A GUIDED TOUR OF THE ESBE FACTORY MUSEUM

2024-09-03

Mats Skogsfors, CEO of ESBE between 1968 and 2000, invites you to a deep dive into ESBE’s history. Get a look at how ESBE has developed both itself as a company, as well as the hometown Reftele since the company was founded in 1906.

In 1906, Johan August Skogsfors founded the company Skogsfors Bruk in the small village Reftele in Småland. At that time the company manufactured agricultural tools and machinery. And even though a lot has happened since then, you can still find traces from the early 20th century.
Some of those traces are collected at our own factory museum, which is located in one of the old production buildings on the factory site in Reftele. Before the summer holidays, we were visited by none other than Mats Skogsfors, who guided our employees through the museum and told us more about the company’s history.
Mats Skogsfors is the grandson of the founder of ESBE Johan August Skogsfors and Mats also was ESBE’s CEO between 1968 and 2000. It’s fair to say that few people live and breathe ESBE the way Mats does – which makes him the ultimate guide to the factory museum.
The tour of the museum starts at a portrait of founder Johan August Skogsfors. Under the portrait is an old desk with some old notebooks, books that once belonged to Johan August himself.

”In these notebooks Johan August collected all the adverts that ESBE made. Here you can see the date, what products were advertised, the costs and several clippings of the adverts themselves.”, says Mats, showing several pages of newspaper clippings, adverts and short notes.

Johan August Skogsfors founded ESBE (Then “Skogsfors Bruk”) in 1906 – in the images you see his grandson Mats Skogsfors showing Johan August notebooks, an early logotype for Skogsfors Bruk, and the portrait of Johan August.

If you browse through the adverts, you can see the width of what was manufactured at the factory in Reftele. Before the shunt valves came into the picture, we can see that everything from threshing machines, ploughs, hydraulic tipping devices for trucks and ball bearings has left ESBE’s factory gates. After a devastating fire at the ESBE factory in the early 1930s, large parts of the original company were sold to SKF (Svenska Kullagerfabriken, the world’s largest manufacturers of ball bearings), who were looking for the aforementioned ball bearing

Many employees were keen to get a tour in the museum and listen to Mats telling the stories of ESBE. In the beginning of 1999, the five millionth valve was produced at the ESBE factory in Reftele – the valve is kept in the museum.

A new era for ESBE

Even though SKF had now bought large parts of the company and had also scrapped the factory in Reftele, this wouldn’t stop Johan August from continuing his diligent work. Instead, he put his future plans in action and began rebuilding the company.
”SKF sent down two men from Gothenburg who broke all the machines in the factory. They were mainly looking to consolidate the range of ball bearings and did not want to run the business here”, says Mats and continues “But Johan August only saw opportunities and in 1931he started a plumbing company that could both help the village, and later on also test our own products”.

In 1935, ESBE’s first shunt valve was launched – the ESBE model 100. Since Johan August also ran the plumbing business, the possibilities to test the new valves were great. And, to test the products thoroughly was something Johan August attached great importance to. One of his enduring mottos was:

”No new idea should be released to the market until it has first been tested in its own home soil.”

There and then, the foundation for today’s ESBE was laid. Although the shunt valves of that time were quite simple compared to today’s high-tech devices, the basis is the same. Especially when it comes to quality, evidence of the ESBE quality is that one of our earliest valves was in use until 1995.

ESBE model ”Ä”is one of our earliest valve models – the valve shown in the pictures was installed in 1935 in the Hoof family home in Svanaholm. The valve was in use all the way until 1995. You can also se some of ESBE’s other valves and actuatrs, as well as earlier products such as a plough and a seed drill.

The ESBE spirit

The tour ends upstairs in the museum, where several Skogsfors Bruk’s agricultural tools and machines are preserved. There are old threshing machines, ploughs, seed drills and more that witness of the journey ESBE has made since Johan August’s time.
What the future holds is hard to predict, but there is no doubt that ESBE will continue its innovative path. Because even though Johan August is no longer with us, his spirit still lives in the company today.