Lenkki celebrates half century

Reviewing the history of this Finnish components producer and its recent innovations for use by footwear manufacturers.

SATRA member Lenkki Oy was founded 50 years ago by footwear entrepreneurs from the Kankaanpää region of Finland to provide raw materials, components and services to the national shoemaking industry. This service expanded into selling abroad, and exports to other Nordic countries and the Baltic region now account for about 20 per cent of net sales. Today, the company – based in the town of Kankaanpää – currently employs 15 members of staff and its largest customer segments are manufacturers of work and safety footwear, leisure and fashion shoes, the military and producers of pet supplies.

In the 1970s, the Finnish footwear sector began to grow strongly. Lenkki’s modern production machinery allowed shoemakers to purchase components and materials centrally and in large quantities. This is said to have permitted these companies to make their products faster and at a lower cost.

From 1976, Lenkki expanded into selling finished footwear to the Soviet Union thanks to bi-lateral trade. Orders were directed to partner organisations for manufacture, for which the company received a small commission. Lenkki also had a subsidiary in Sweden for footwear export. However, after a couple of years this was sold to the operation’s management team. Footwear trade conducted with the Soviet Union ended with this bloc’s dissolution in 1992.

Moving forward

During the nineties, business success in a competitive market required the development of new innovations. In 1997, Lenkki cooperated with partner companies and the Finnish state’s Technical Research Centre to develop a sole structure which is said to have made the wearer’s foot up to eight degrees warmer and the outsole more grippy than in conventional winter footwear. Lenkki won second place in a national innovation competition for this creation and received a patent for the product for a maximum period of 20 years.

Lenkki’s catalogue of footwear components included toe puffs, heel counters, insoles and insocks and then, in 2016, outsoles were added to the company’s product range as it brought in injection moulding machines and moulds. This led to the development of different tread patterns, heights and material hardnesses to produce a very grippy sole for winter footwear. In addition, Lenkki developed an outsole with elastic studs to provide grip both indoors and outdoors.

In September 2023, Lenkki launched ‘ELT+ by Solepex’ outsoles casual shoes at the Lineapelle fair. These have been developed to support the circular economy and be more sustainable by containing 30 per cent of rubber from discarded Nokian Tyres car tyres, and the company received support for this project from the European Regional Development Fund. This project helped Lenkki to win first place in a competition for sustainable innovations held in the Finnish city of Vantaa. SATRA has estimated that carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by around 46 per cent in terms of material and transportation when virgin material is replaced with recycled material.

Well-established

Today, Lenkki is primarily owned by the Pomarfin, Ejendals Suomi and Kankaanpään Medipiste footwear companies. Its factory has been located on the same plot in Kankaanpää since 1974, and the facility has been expanded twice. The company manufactures insoles, heel counters, insoles and outsoles in this location. Lenkki designs the injection moulds required for its manufacturing processes, and moulds are serviced and simple examples are manufactured in an onsite workshop.

In addition to individual orthopaedic insole blanks and other footwear components, Lenkki makes a diverse range of supplementary products, including arm rest cushioning for racing cycle handles, spectacle cases made from rpet felt, and tyres for rollators. Apart from the company’s polyurethane (PU) products, which are manufactured by a subcontractor elsewhere in Europe with Lenkki’s moulds, everything else is produced in Finland.

The photograph above shows Lenkki product designer Juha Alitalo and managing director Annamaija Mäkilouko.

Publishing Data

This article was originally published on page 28 of the March 2024 issue of SATRA Bulletin.

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