WE'VE DONE THIS SINCE 1952
Our history is crucial to who we are. It defines who we are today while our new strategy defines where we're headed.
STARTUP 1952
Our story is not just that of Elvin Petersen, a diligent, Danish blacksmith, who paved the way for what would later become one of the Nordic region's largest suppliers of store design and retail solutions. It is also the story of how his visionary son, Leif Petersen, took daddy’s business to the next level back in 1965 and made Expedit a benchmark player in retail.
SELF-SERVICE: THE NEW BLACK IN THE 60'S
Since the late 50's, Expedit has been a crucial part in driving retail development, when new structures of society spawned self-service supermarkets offering large assortments of groceries across the country. The new shopping patterns required new functional solutions for both product exposure and a whole new concept: shopping trolleys.
THE NORDICS: OUR HOME MARKET
Our customers are big brands and retail chains. When they expand and open stores abroad, we follow along. That's why we established factories and sales offices throughout the Nordic region in the 1990s. It reassures the retail chains that they get the same high quality and service they are accustomed to, no matter where they go. This has made Expedit attractive to chains throughout Scandinavia.
WANZL – GLOBAL MUSCLES
Expedit is owned by German corporation Wanzl. A joint venture which dates back to the early 60s. First as a collab. Later, Wanzl became a shareholder and now they are the majority shareholder and parent company of the Expedit Group. The business setup with Wanzl, one of the World's leading suppliers of retail and logistics systems, has gained us financial muscles and has opened markets throughout Europe.
JAMES BOND AND VERNER PANTON
There are practically no limits to what can be made in wire. In the 1970s, it resulted in a number of projects that were well beyond Expedit's normal product range. Among other things, a collaboration with world-renowned furniture designer Verner Panton on his iconic Pantonova furniture system, which was featured in a James Bond movie. It paved the way for Expedit as a design house.
INTERNATIONAL DESIGN HOUSE
Our design focus is really a chicken-and-egg situation: Did we acquire our design expertise because our customers demanded increasingly more specialized solutions or because we were good at not only delivering off the shelf solutions, but also offered visionary input to customized store design? It is uncertain, but fact is: today we are one of the leading Nordic suppliers of store design.