About Mora
A lot has changed over the years, but each product is still crafted by hand with the utmost care in Mora.
Our history started with Frost Matts Mattsson, a young entrepreneur. He founded FM Mattsson in 1865 in the village of Östnor near Mora. By the time Frost Matts Mattsson died in 1914, his sons Anders and Karl had taken over the management of the company.
In 1926, a year-long strike brought the factory to a standstill. This caused Frost Karl and his wife Anna Maria to set up a new factory, Mora Armatur, just across the road. Frost Karl took twelve of the workers with him to the new factory, and since 1927 Mora Armatur has been established as a top quality brand in the industry.
The history of Mora Armatur
Being a farmer in 18th century Sweden was no bed of roses. Everyday life was an almost constant battle against the caprice of nature. A sustained rainfall or unseasonal cold weather could tip the fine balance between a tolerable or a miserable existence. In the region around Mora in the province of Dalarna, the lean soil sometimes yielded such poor harvests that the local farmers were forced to seek new ways of earning a living. In the village of Östnor near Mora, the local people took up clock making to supplement their income.
After a hard day’s work in the fields they would retire indoors, and continue to work making clocks, sometimes well into the small hours. For a period of time, the whole village seemed to be a huge communal workshop for clocks.
The local brazier Frost Matts Mattsson was a highly enterprising young man. He made ornaments for the local traditional costumes, and he cast components and fittings for all the clocks in the village. Eventually, Frost Matts succumbed to the hard times and had to seek new means of income. In 1876 he cast his first boiler tap and started a whole new industry in Östnor, producing water taps. But, perhaps the single most decisive event for Mora Armatur was the year-long strike in 1926, which paralysed the factory.
The business was now run by the two sons of Frost Matts Mattsson, Karl and Anders, who disagreed about the future of the company. Frost Karl left, taking twelve of the best workers, as he maintained, with him and established Mora Armatur just across the road.
Today, 90 years later, Mora Armatur is one of the largest and most modern sanitary fitting producers in Europe. Almost 600,000 mixers leave the factory every year, destined for kitchens and bathrooms worldwide.