BNL's history

The Founder thinks back

I was a trained pastry chef working in Skurup, when one day one of the men delivering our bread got sick. We needed someone else to make his deliveries, and it turned out that I was the only one who could find my way around in Malmö. So stepped up to the plate, and that is how it all started.

I quit my work as a pastry chef and started to work for Denco, where I met Anita.I stayed at Denco until I got a job as a driver at Malmö Thermo Transport in 1974. There I drove between Eslöv and Malmö with deep frozen food for Felix. My first “long run” was  driving to Fågelmara in Blekinge with a big load of spinach.

Malmö Thermo Transport were great, and I remained working there until 1976, when I instead joined Nord & Andersson in Abbekås. They were extra road carriers for Frigoscandia, which at that point was owned by Malmros. Here I stayed for two years, then signed on to Grahn's road carriers, who also drove for Frigoscandia. Granh's used good looking commercial vehicles, and mostly transported to Norway, Denmark and Austria. With them, I drove a so called “Tygtrailer” (It's a Swedish word without a real translation, it roughly translates to “Cloth Truck”) for Erocargo, which means that you got to drive just about everywhere. For example, I drove to Nitro Nobel's firing sites in Likenäs-Värmland, to Philips in Stockholm with television receivers, wood from Furuvikt, aluminium rods to Robertsfors and wood at Jämtlamell.

I stayed there until Grahn's went bankrupt in 1980. I then began working for Malm's road carriers instead, which was (convenitently) located next door to Grahn's. I worked there for two years. We drove al lot for LKW Walter, were there were several of Austrian carriers who came from Italy, and did not have third-country permits.

The carrier business was not so strict about working hours back then, you actually spent more time in the truck than you did at home. But it was a valuable lesson in learning how to take care of yourself.

After a couple of instructive years with Gert, he could no longer pay our salaries, so instead of getting payout in cash, I got to keep the truck that I had been driving.

I earned a traffic-permit and started my own road carrier company February 8th 1982. I did however keep driving for Gert until he was unable to pay our salaries at all. After that I started to work for Contway.

At Contway everything was in good order, and we drove al lot for Wilson. Since Rolf at Contway was acquainted with Bengt Åberg at Helsingborg's Trailertrans, I started to drive to Norway for them.

One day I got the opportunity to rent and pull a Frigotrailer, since the owner had grown tired of their absence. After about a year we unfortunately realised that when the owner of the trailers got his share of the money, there was not enough left for us, and so the contract was terminated. Since they were satisfied with our work, I got offered to drive directly for  Frigoscandia January 1:st 1988.

I drove to Norway until they decided not to join EU, and after that we no longer drove to Norway. Since I was the only one with a west-permit at that time, I was transferred to the Helsingborg's office and started to drive to the “west”.

I was involved with building up a stockpile of Magnum ice-cream in Basel when it was introduced in southern Europe. I was also involved with building a stockpile in Frigo's freezer Monsult outside Paris for IKEA. As the assignments increased, so did our vehicles, and we were driving with a total of four freezer trucks.

We were also there when SCANIA introduced its 124-series, which was a treat! They wanted to test their new vehicles in different environments, and since we drove on the continent, we were most suitable for the task.

The vehicles attracted much curiosity, especially amongst our colleagues, since there were no SCANIA marks on them.

Then one day, a letter from Lennart Andersson who worked at the Helsingborg's office abroad department arrived.  They were going to begin a co-operation with IKEA’s food department, and for my “long and faithful service” I got to put in a recurrent truck to IKEA’s department store in the Ruhr area. In order to let all drivers at Frigo would know what it was about, they got to go with me, one week each.

I always loaded on Tuesdays, went to IKEA to unload on Wednesdays and Thursdays, loaded back home on Fridays. The final loading was always in Hamburg. I was home on Saturdays so that I could unload on Sunday mornings. I had been driving like this for four years when we got an assignment to handle a new client for Frigo; Skånemejerier.

The decision was made to sell the vehicles we had used abroad, so that we could stay “home” more and take over Skånemejerier completely. This something that I will never regret.

During these past years there has been a great deal of assignments from both Skånemejerier and Frigoscandia.

What started with a sick deliveryman has been managed well by Johan, who has contributed to make BNL what it is today.