HGF has become a very creative company over the past years. We have developed know-how and the capacity to develop products together with our customers. It was therefore only natural for us to pick up a dwelling product like the Öllöv horse shoe and try to do something very special with it. The Öllöv horse shoe brand is owned by HGF and has been on the market for 25 years and although it’s a fantastic product it had never really taken off. In 2016 we started a design project together with a German farrier who has shod exclusively with Öllöv for the past 15 years. A wide range of improvements were introduced and previous product disadvantages were eliminated. Extensive functional and field testing was done to fine tune the design. The new Öllöv SoftStep horse shoe was the result. It’s a product of true multi-cultural teamwork stretching across borders both in terms of the supply chain partners, the team members, the team farriers, and the team riders.
The CEO of HGF , Christian Kiks, explains what the goals and benefits are of the Öllöv project for the whole organization:
“The goal for Öllöv SoftStep is clear: to sell one million shoes per year. But the foundation is a true passion for horses. This product makes so much sense for the welfare of horses and the Öllöv team is really excited about the positive impact we will have. I believe the experience of brand development of a product line is very beneficial for HGF. It is true that we fundamentally are a B2B type of company, but there are a lot of things to learn from the Öllöv journey. Like the creative thinking in the product development process, the way we market the product on our Öllöv Web site and on Social Media, the way we set up the logistic flows, etc. These are all things that we can take with us and improve for the benefit of our industrial customers.”
