Uploaded August 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
Meet Severin Sjöstedt, the chef behind the original IKEA meatball recipe. Back in 1985 Severin threw himself into the job of creating the perfect IKEA meatball, a challenge that involved long and passionate discussions with his team and Ingvar Kamprad. “Back then, guests in our restaurants were not served in a smooth and quick way and the quality was not good enough,” explains Severin. “It was a serious problem because as Ingvar Kamprad put it: ‘It’s tough to do business with hungry stomachs’”. It took Severin nearly one year to create the perfect recipe. Today more than a billion IKEA meatballs are sold every year. They’re very IKEA – they’re convenient, they’re Swedish, and they’re for the many.
Meet Severin Sjöstedt, the chef behind the original IKEA meatball recipe. Back in 1985 Severin threw himself into the job of creating the perfect IKEA meatball, a challenge that involved long and passionate discussions with his team and Ingvar Kamprad. “Back then, guests in our restaurants were not served in a smooth and quick way and the quality was not good enough,” explains Severin. “It was a serious problem because as Ingvar Kamprad put it: ‘It’s tough to do business with hungry stomachs’”. It took Severin nearly one year to create the perfect recipe. Today more than a billion IKEA meatballs are sold every year. They’re very IKEA – they’re convenient, they’re Swedish, and they’re for the many.
