By Editor Morten B. Reitoft

Norway is by far one of my favourite countries. Friendly people, beautiful nature, an amazing wealth, and a culture that inspires me a lot. Norway is also a costly country to live in, and being a tourist there is for most an extremely expensive experience. The country is as long as you can imagine and the population density is so low, that you can go to parts of Norway that are - well - just without people. Wilderness, nature, and cinematic views of fjords, mountains, forests, and old cities strike you whenever you are there.

Norway is known for a lot of the things mentioned above, but Norway is also one of the wealthiest countries in the world measured on GDP. The oil that is the foundation of the Norwegian wealth has been carefully invested in so many companies globally that Norway's oil Foundation accounts for 1.4% of all wealth on earth and is by far the largest investor at all. More than a trillion dollars is the equity of the foundation. Staggering numbers for a country with close to 5 million inhabitants.

An extremely safe country and a country that has been led better than most other countries in the world. However. As stunning as these numbers are, there is a downside. As you may know, the Norwegians chose not to be part of the European Unition but are closely associated with the European Union. The taxation is high, and the politicians keep a strict eye on using the oil-money to ensure low inflation and an exchange rate for the Norwegian Krone, to be competitive with the dollar, etc.

Operating a company, and even more a printing company, in Norway, is quite different compared to more densely populated areas in the world. Imagine the high operating cost, combined with a small market. Norwegian printing companies are simply required to have the newest and the latest equipment to be competitive. They MUST be competitive, since both Swedish, Danish, and even more Baltic, Polish, and German printing companies are way cheaper than most Norwegian printing companies. A lot of the Norwegian printing companies, however, strive. They invest, they produce premium products, and they have a domestic market that appreciates the local business. You do find competition in the market, and you would, of course, imagine that especially web-offset printing companies would be easy targets. However, this story is about Ålgård Offset. Today, January 2nd 2020, they celebrate 40th anniversary. Tom Bjarte Norland is the owner and the CEO of the company that in 40 years have developed from printing on a small Ryobi printing machine to now operate 3 16-pages web-offset machines in Norway, and 2 32-page web-offset machines out of their Swedish operations. 110 people are employed, and they expect revenue in 2020 close to 39 million dollars.

Ålgård has out-competed every other web-offset printing company in Norway and can operate profitably in a market where they are so lean that they produce web-offset produced magazines down to 3.000 copies - competitive, and profitable.

This is amazing. Many printing companies compete in a very competitive environment but have markets way more significant than the entire population of Norway. Ålgård is by all measures, an amazing company, and I have been fortuned to visit the company a couple of times. A couple of years ago they invested in a new building. The three floors have three arrow-shaped meeting rooms and the tables are made of granite in white, in black, and in red. Standing at the meeting room on the top floor gives you a view over the river, where natural salmons live, but you also see the massive granite blocks made like wooden letter stamps in the same three colours used for their meeting tables. The building, the office, the surrounds are stunning, and as with the rest of Norway, Ålgård Offset presents themselves with the same pride as I see everywhere in Norway. The wealth has given Norwegians an incredible belief in themselves, and I must admit, I am jealous like hell.

Congratulations to Tom Bjarte Norland, and his 109 team members. I bow in respect!