History

Kemi-Intressen, founded in 1944, is one of the oldest and most experienced distributors in the Nordic countries.

As of 1 August, 2005, we belong to a new family, Nordmann, Rassmann GmbH (NRC), Hamburg, Germany. NRC is an internationally active distributor of chemical raw materials, additives and specialty chemicals from all around the world. Our previous owner, EKA Chemicals AB of the Dutch Akzo Nobel Group, had decided to concentrate on its core business and had, as part of its reorientation process, sold Kemi-Intressen to NRC. At NRC we represent an important part of the core business.

Below a reflection made by Mr. Peter Hammargren who was active in the company between 1944-1988:

KEMI-INTRESSEN AB

1943 – 1988

By Peter Hammargren

During 1943 my father Carl-Herman Hammargren was contacted by the two well-known companies Stora Kopparberg and Stockholms Superfosfat Fabriks AB, asking him, whether he could consider to establish a company, which – during the ongoing war could supply the above-mentioned and related enterprises with necessary raw materials for their production.

1944 Kemi-Intressen AB was registered with my father as Managing Director and me as only employee. To begin with I spent most of my time at the Trade- and Industry commissions as well as at the Currency Office in order to obtain all necessary import licenses The most difficult task was to find suppliers of needed materials, as many factories and raw material sources – at least in Europe – were destroyed by different war activities. Travelling abroad was almost impossible. Thus most of necessary contacts had to be made by mail or telephone. Our first more important agencies were obtained in the US, Australia, England and Germany. Already after 25 years (1969) we were almost 200 employees and continued to grow due to our expansion into pharmaceuticals and via antibiotics as feed additive into animal test stations for feed tests. We started a factory for wooden stable, which later also constructed steel buildings on a minor scale.

In 1970 Kemi-Intressen AB had the following four departments:

1. Chemicals – Industrial raw materials
2. Pharmaceuticals – Medical articles
3. Feed additives – Agricultural Chemicals
4. Equipment for Agriculture and Environment

Through our activities within the agricultural sector we noticed the increasing growth in the area of broiler-chicken production in the US. At that time the chicken consumption in Sweden amounted to only 0,1 kg/person /year. Thus we decided – after our Board’s approval – to start broiler-production in Sweden. Kemi-Intressen AB brought AB Ivar¨s and Felix AB’s chicken production and formed a daughter company under the name of IVO FOOD with an annual production capacity of 12 million broiler chickens (= about 10 000 tons) or 1,5 broilers/person /year. We now had 90% of breeding stock and about 50% of day-old broilers in Sweden. After having reached 100% of production capacity we sold IVO FOOD, as at the same time consumption increase had almost stopped.

My father died in 1954 and the Board appointed me as Managing Director, which position I held until 1988, when I reached 65 years of age. At that time Kemi-Intressen AB had become a part of Nobel Industrier AB, which group later was taken over by Akzo, Holland. In that connection several of Kemi-Intressens’s departments were sold to different interested parties. I stayed in the Board of Kemi-Intressen AB until 1992. Today's Kemi-Intressen is the former Chemicals department.