Stala Oy is celebrating its -50year-old journey with stainless steel. Our story from a Lahti-based sink producer into a global technology company has many twists and turns, but we have kept a strong-as-steel grip on our main principles.
Scroll down and get to know our -50year-old story.
The name Stala is a play on the words Stainless and Lahti. Stala Oy was entered in the Finnish Trade Register on 5 May 1972. Our founder Reino Rajamäki was an ambitious engineer and family entrepreneur. He led the company for decades and left his unforgettable mark on Stala’s corporate culture. Stala’s main principles were also established around this time. Skills of steel, high-quality work, and continuous development were identified as valuable priorities since the very beginning. We have never compromised on them since then.
Sustainable and functional design has been our key objective since the very beginning. The design of the EkoLine waste sorting system, which we started producing in the 1980s, still looks as modern as it did on its launching day. Soon thereafter, we started producing mailboxes from surplus steel. This theme was also the basis for officially implementing Lean philosophy in our operations with the purpose of reducing all waste created by our processes.
Our long-term investment in quality was acknowledged at the turn of the 1990s as we won the Finnish Quality Association’s quality award two years in a row. At the same time, we took our first steps towards internationalisation.
At the turn of the millennium, homes changed as open kitchens entered the picture. Celebrity chefs showcased their professional kitchens with attractive shiny steel counters in cooking shows. Stainless steel became the new norm, and Stala became the messenger of the new era. We show that functional everyday solutions can also be beautiful, just like our mailboxes which won the GOOD DESIGN® 2014 award.
The past decades have shown us that continuous development and responsible growth are worth it. In the past years, we have taken huge new leaps forward by announcing our responsibility goals and growing stronger by merging with Alveus. Our innovative and eco-friendly StalaTex™ won the Green GOOD DESIGN® award in 2021. We will ambitiously continue developing new products with a long lifespan. We proudly fly the flag of Finnish work as we treasure modern steel competence and Finnish design.
At Stala, we look to the future with enthusiasm. Everything we do centres around future-oriented, socially and ecologically sustainable business operations and functional everyday solutions that improve your wellbeing. The changing times require us to focus constantly, but we will keep holding on to our principles with a grip of steel. We want to be pioneers in building a sustainable future, and we are committed to the required continuous and long-term development, competence investments, and production of sustainable and high-quality solutions.