The truth about IKEA: It's not Swedish

PopGoesTheNews.com IKEA spends a lot of money every year keeping consumers under the impression that it's Swedish: It uses the colors of the Swedish flag, has a guy with a Swedish accent do its radio ads, and serves delicious Swedish meatballs in its restaurants. This extensive marketing campaign has paid off because you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't think IKEA is Swedish.

IKEA is, in fact, a Dutch company.

The retailer's headquarters are located in Leiden, a city of about 120,000 people located 40 km south of Amsterdam. Virtually all of its stores are owned and operated by INGKA Holding, a private Dutch company that is owned by Stichting Ingka Foundation, a tax-exempt not-for-profit foundation also based in the Netherlands. The IKEA trademark and design concept are owned by a separate Dutch company, Inter IKEA Systems, which is owned by Inter IKEA Holding, a company registered in Luxembourg.

IKEA's founder is Ingvar Kamprad, who is of German descent and was active in the pro-Nazi movement as a teen (he has since apologized for his involvement). Now 85, he lives in Switzerland and is ranked by Forbes as the 162nd wealthiest person in the world.

Most IKEA goods are manufactured in China or Poland. Dining chairs and tables are given Finnish names and carpets get Dutch names.

So where does the whole Swedish thing come into the picture? Well, Kamprad was born in Sweden (the IKEA name is an acronym for the founder's names, the name of his family's farm Elmtaryd and the nearby village of Agunnaryd), the company was founded in Sweden and the company's product design and development is done in Sweden.

Incidentally, Sweden is about 1,200 km north of the Netherlands.