Bergans Fritid, the Norwegian firm which claims to have invented the rucksack back in 1908, saw its sales grow by 33 percent in 2005 to a record level of 211 million Norwegian kroner (€26.7m-$32.3m), not including a licensing contract in the USA, and after an exceptionally good first half of the year, the management is projecting further growth of at least 25 percent in 2006.
As about 90 percent of the turnover is still in Norway, these scores place the company at the top of the country’s very technical outdoor market, close to Helly Hansen. That company had sales of almost 200 million NOK in its home market last year, excluding special products such as work and survival gear, although it has a much wider distribution abroad. The third-largest national player in the outdoor market was another Norwegian company, Norrøna, which continues to generate about 80 percent of its annual sales of nearly 100 million NOK (€12.7m-$15.3m) from the domestic market.
Helly Hansen is probably still the leader on a national basis in the apparel sector, but clothing is the fastest-growing product category at Bergans. It has grown to represent nearly 75 percent of its turnover through a widened selection of items that are slightly more affordable than those of Helly Hansen, while offering many technical features, which are very appreciated in Norway. The company previously held for three years the exclusive right to use Toray’s Dermizax fabric in Norway. It still makes heavy use of fleece from Malden Mills and Pontetorto.
Bergans started selling garments under its own brand again only in 1996, after a turbulent period of internal re-engineering, and the recent introduction of many softshells has turned the summer portion of this business to more than 45 percent of the apparel turnover. Aside from that, Bergans remains leader in Norway in the area of technical backpacks as well as school daypacks. The company had a vast collection of tents, sleeping bags and garments until the late 1980s, when it ran into serious financial problems. In 1993, two years after a management buyout, the company decided to go back to its roots in backpacking, concentrating on the development of highly technical products in order to re-establish the brand on a firm footing.
Bergans is now bigger and very profitable. The management is still led by Ragnar Jensen and by Sølvi Nilsen, two former executives who took over the company in 1991 with the help of a financier, involved also in real estate and other businesses, who retains a controlling interest. Jensen, a former product manager of Bergans, acts as general manager of the company. Nilsen was then and is still now the marketing manager. Tore Christiansen acts as sales manager.
Similarly to Norrøna’s recent strategy, Bergans has recently begun to explore other markets in Europe. At the end of 2004 it appointed an export manager, Hans J. Stengel, and set up an export office in Sweden to have a foot in the European Union. Export sales rose by 55 percent last year, but the growth will be much higher in 2006 following several new agency and distribution deals, some of which are still under negotiation. Bergans’ sales are set to double this year in Sweden and in Germany, where the brand is distributed by Scandic Outdoor. They stand to grow by nearly 50 percent in Denmark, where Bergans works through agents. Agents are working for the brand also in Austria and Spain.
Four years ago, Bergans formed a joint venture with a Norwegian entrepreneur in Seattle for the U.S. market. Some of its products are made locally under license for sale to the U.S. Navy. It made the investment after finally succeeding in registering the brand in North America – a feat which was prevented by the fact that the word “Bergans” is given in the Webster dictionary as a synonym for “rucksack.”
The name Bergans comes from Ole F. Bergan, a Norwegian who invented a backpack with a frame carrying system - basically the same one that is being used today. Patented in 1908, it was quickly adopted by the Norwegian Army. It was used in numerous arctic expeditions such as the famous 1928 challenge of Roald Amundsen, and by Lincoln Ellsworth and General Bruce to climb up Mount Everest, making the backpack famous. The company continues to sponsor major expeditions. Most recently it outfitted Rune Gjeldnes as he became last Feb. 3 the first explorer to have crossed alone Greenland lengthways, covering 4,804 kilometers of inhospitable terrain on a pair of skis.
Bergans has a product testing station at the summit of Gaustatoppen, one of the highest mountains in Norway with an altitude of 1,833 meters in extreme weather conditions. The company continues to develop highly technical backpacks, although some of its original key patents expired around 1960. Bergans has nothing to do with a British company, Berghaus, although it uses a former Berghaus executive as a consultant to work with its designers.
