Lilleborg AS is a major hygiene and

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article company in Norway, owned by the

Orkla Group Orkla ASA is a Norwegian conglomerate operating in the Nordic region, Eastern Europe, Asia and the US. At present, Orkla operates in the branded consumer goods, aluminium solutions and financial investment sectors. Orkla ASA is listed on the Os ...

. It was established in 1833, and was one of the first companies in Norway to start manufacturing brand name products. It currently operates three factories in Norway, and employs a total working staff of 595.

History

Originally a family business, established in 1833 on the banks of the

Aker Aker may refer to: Places * Aker, Norway, a geographic area in Oslo and a former municipality in Norway * Vestre Aker, a district of Oslo within former Aker municipality * Nordre Aker, a district of Oslo within former Aker municipality * Aker Br ...

river in Oslo, Lilleborg expanded in 1842 to manufacturing hygiene products with the opening of ''"sæbesyderiet"'', the "soap boilery". Here the company's manufacture of soft soap and bathroom soaps took place. In 1897, it became an '' aksjeselskap'', and changed its name to A/S Lilleborg Fabrikker. In the final years of the 19th century, the company was offering a broad range of oils, bathroom, household and soft soaps. It was also the largest company of its sort in Norway, with more than 100 employees on roll. At the end of the 1920s, Lilleborg had developed a close relationship with

Denofa Denofa AS, established in 1912 as De Nordiske Fabriker A/S (De-No-Fa for short), is a Norwegian industrial company. It has produced oil, proteins and fatty acid (lecithin) for the food processing industry, the fodder industry and the pharmaceutic ...

, a

cooking oil Cooking oil is plant, animal, or synthetic liquid fat used in frying, baking, and other types of cooking. It is also used in food preparation and flavoring not involving heat, such as salad dressings and bread dips, and may be called edible oil. ...

producing company based in Fredrikstad. This culminated in 1930 with an agreement of cooperation between Lilleborg, Denofa, and the British company Lever Brothers (later Unilever), which had large ownership interests in the companies. As part of this agreement, Lilleborg acquired ownership and production of several well-known Lever Brothers brands,

Sunlight Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when t ...

being perhaps the foremost. Focusing strongly on brands throughout the 1930s, the company launched several of their strongest-selling brands of today in the years before the war, including Lano, Solidox, Blenda and

Lux The lux (symbol: lx) is the unit of illuminance, or luminous flux per unit area, in the International System of Units (SI). It is equal to one lumen per square metre. In photometry, this is used as a measure of the intensity, as perceived by the ...

. Unilever decided to sell their stocks in the company in 1958, but agreed upon another cooperation agreement which was to last for 20 years. This agreement was subsequently reformed on two occasions, and is still in effect - and will be until 2014. The following year, Denofa and Lilleborg

merged Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

to form ''A/S Denofa og Lilleborg Fabriker'', which soon became a major player in the Norwegian hygiene market. The company then, in 1973, acquired

Goma fabrikker Goma is the capital of North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, next to the Rwandan city of Gisenyi. The lake and the two cities are in the Albertine Rift, the wester ...

, which in turned owned (amongst others)

A/S Ello As, AS, A. S., A/S or similar may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * A. S. Byatt (born 1936), English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer * "As" (song), by Stevie Wonder * , a Spanish sports newspaper * , an academic male voic ...

in Kristiansund. In 1996, Lilleborg and Denofa split once more into two separate entities, in which Denofa continued the cooking oil activities, while Lilleborg was evolved into a pure brand-name manufacturer. In relation with this split, Lilleborg was reorganized as a company under ''Orkla Brands'', a division of the

, whilst Denofa was placed under ''Orkla Chemistry''. In 1997, the activity by the Aker river ceased, while a new laundry detergent factory was opened in Ski.

Brands

Lilleborg holds and/or produces the following brand name products:

Personal hygiene

* Lano *

(hand soap) * Dr Greve (shower gels, deodorant, hand soap) * Dove * Axe * Sterilan (deodorant) *

Define A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional defini ...

(hair care) * Finesse (hair care) * Sunsilk (hair care) *

Vaseline Intensive Care Vaseline ()Also pronounced with the main stress on the last syllable . is an American brand of petroleum jelly-based products owned by transnational company Unilever. Products include plain petroleum jelly and a selection of skin creams, so ...

(skin care) * LdB / Lait de Beauté (skin care) * Solidox (toothpaste, gum) * Spenol

Laundry

* Blenda *

Omo Omo or OMO may refer to: Geography Ethiopia * Omo River (Ethiopia), in southern Ethiopia is the largest Ethiopian river outside the Nile Basin and namesake for all the topics below * Omo Nada, one of the woredas in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia ...

* Milo (detergent and fabric softener) * Comfort (fabric softener)

Household

Zalo
(manual dishwashing) * Sun (dishwashing) * Svint (soap-added steel wool) * Jif * Salmi (ammonia-based cleaning fluid) * Klorin (chlorine bleach/disinfectant) * Krystal (soft soap)

Other

* Lypsyl (lip balm)

References

{{nofootnotes, date=December 2010

External links

Company website
(in Norwegian)