 
The important Swedish bakery industry Wasabröd AB has been sold from the drug company Novartis to the Italian Barilla group, for a sum of 323 million US dollars. Barilla is the biggest pasta-maker in the world and according to them they make the No 1 pasta.
Crisp bread traditionsCrisp bread has been a Swedish tradition for hundreds of years. Before Wasa was founded, the Swedish people made their own crisp breads at home. Why we have kept this tradition for so long must depend on the long preservation time of the bread and because it’s so healthy. During famines and the first world war people filled out the bread with bark to get a feeling of satisfaction.
With Barilla’s purchase we are hoping that crisp bread will be as big in Italy as pasta already is here in Sweden.
Long live Wasa(Wasa was also a Swedish old king that lived 17th century!)
|
Apart from pasta Barilla also makes bakery products and pasta sauces which aren’t so well
known here in Sweden. In the Barilla group there are four different brands; Barilla, Mulino
Bianco, Pavesi and Voiello. You can compare the Swedish Wasa to the Barilla brand Mulino Bianco.
They both make bakery products with quality. That is one of the reason why Barilla bought Wasa.
Some other reasons are that they share the same business policy - simple products which are
natural and healthy.
The first crisp bread bakery was started in Skellefteå, which is situated 200 kilometres
north of Örnsköldsvik. It was the baker Karl Edward Lundström who got the idea of transforming
the manual work into industry. Today Wasa’s biggest factory is situated in Filipstad in the
south of Sweden. And as a matter of facts Wasa crisp bread is one of the most bought provisions
here in Sweden. Maybe that explains why Swedish people are so healthy and smart?!
