A 80 year-old cheese master

A village grocery shop in Marbäck
Wernersson Ost was founded in 1930 by Tage Wernersson. The company started as a small grocery shop in the village of Marbäck near Ulricehamn in Sweden. The shop sold everything imaginable, but had a special passion for cheese right from the start. Over time, the villagers noticed Wernersson’s passion for cheese, and the shop became popularly known as Wernerssons ost (Wernersson’s cheese shop). Even people from the surrounding regions started coming here to buy cheese from Marbäck’s resident cheese master. Tage soon realised that it would be more practical to take his cheese into town, where customers were more likely to visit. In 1935, he removed the back seats from the family’s T-Ford and loaded it full of cheese. Every Wednesday and Saturday, he sold cheese from a market stall in Ulricehamn – all year round, come rain or shine.



Cheese cellars
Wernerssons went from strength to strength. In 1940, Tage moved to Ulricehamn with his family. They built a house on the road named Jönköpingsvägen. But they didn’t just live there. Tage purchased cheese and stored it in the cellar of the house. He would sit at the breakfast table assessing the cheeses’ maturing process. Eventually, the cellar became too small and Tage started renting storage space in friends’ and relatives cellars. (The cellars were cold, guaranteeing a good maturing process.)
The house on Jönköpingsvägen was also used as a shop alongside the market stall. Two cheese shops may sound excessive for a small town like Ulricehamn, but remember that big supermarkets didn’t exist in those days. People bought meat from the butchers and cheese from the cheesemonger, and milk was delivered in bottles.

Growing fame
In the 1960s, the company really started expanding. Wernersson Ost’s excellent reputation had spread throughout Sweden, and the company’s sales increased. In 1962, the cheeses were moved from private cellars on Jönköpingsvägen to a real warehouse with a packing department. That same year, Tage’s son-in-law Carl-Erik Pehrson took over the reins of the family company.

Properties are bought, sold and extended
In 1965, Wernerssons closed its market stall and opened its own cheese shop in town. This offered many benefits: the company could keep longer opening hours, installed a refrigerator counter, and no longer needed to stand outside braving the elements. The following year, in 1966, the warehouse moved again, this time to the street called Strandgatan. Carl-Erik continued expanding the company, and set up distributors in Norrköping further north and Tidaholm. The business ran smoothly throughout the 1980s. In 1983, the company sold all its cheese shops and concentrated on what it did best: maturing and refining cheese. Although the facilities on Strandgatan had been extended five times, the situation eventually became unsustainable.
Much larger premises were needed. The solution was to buy a larger, free-standing warehouse. This was done in 1990, the same year that Carl-Erik handed the company over to the next generation: Christer and Magnus Pehrson.

EU opens up the market
Sweden’s accession to the EU in 1995 brought many benefits for Wernersson Ost. Because the borders to Europe were now open, the company no longer needed to pay duty on imported cheese, and paperwork became much simpler. This didn’t only apply to Wernersson Ost; the whole industry became more cost-effective. (For instance, soft cheeses cost less today than in 1980.)

Continued craftsmanship
By 1999, Wernersson Ost had outgrown its premises yet again. The company bought a 7,000 m2 plant a few kilometres outside Ulricehamn. A few years later, the business was sold to a management company that still runs Wernersson Ost today. During the 2000s, Wernersson Ost expanded by acquiring several cheese companies, and the Group currently has net sales of SEK 600 million.
A lot has happened since Tage Wernersson started selling cheese in his grocery shop in Marbäck. But the cheese master’s nose for quality, taste and craftsmanship still lives on in the company today.