Safe driving with BRIO toys!A roadmap to our quality demands, materials and production.

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More than a century of BRIO play BRIO’s history dates all the way back to

1884 when BRIO came up with the idea to

sell quality products. BRIO created its first

wooden toy, Osbyhästen, in 1907.

BRIO’s goal at the time was to produce toys

of the highest quality – and this is still our

top priority.

Then and now, our position is that children

of any size deserve to play with the best

products when it comes to materials,

design and imagination. And our employees

believe that it is always possible to do

yesterday’s tasks even better tomorrow.

We are also conservative. We do not

change things from one day to the next

without rigorous testing. This is to ensure

joyful play, proper design, durability –

and, above all, safety.

Many adults remember their BRIO toys.

That’s why we like to say that we create

happy childhood memories. And our

hope is that the children of today will ex-

perience BRIO in the same way that many

generations have done before them.

That’s when we know we have

succeeded.

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In the 1950s, the Ivarsson brothers (BRIO) started collaborating with SAS and the Swedish American ferry line. The airplanes were equipped with BRIO toys to allow the younger passengers to play while travelling. Together they held a competition for families with a flight theme. The three top prizes were flight tickets to go with 97 other prizes designed to attract participants. A separate competition was held among retailers. The first prize was flight tickets to Zurich with a visit to Franz Carl Weber, Europe’s largest specialty toy store.

The picture shows Helicopter from 1948, Duck from 1948 and a sports car from 1950.

Playroom picture from the late 1940s. Three children appear in the foreground playing with BRIO’s locomotive with green wheels and carriages from 1945 and a BRIO tractor from 1947.

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Wood is the heart and soul of our toys!

Beech

Wood: Beech is far and away the most frequently used ingredient across BRIO´s product range. Beech is ideal for producing toys. It is hard and very difficult to break. Additionally, beech is an ordinary wood species that is not endangered and is replaced, which is vital for us.

Some may call us old-fashioned

because we have held on to wood

as our most important material for

BRIO’s many toy models for more

than 100 years.

That’s just fine with us.

We believe that wood as a material is

timeless, very durable and naturally

appeals to children and adults alike.

And we believe we have a point.

New generations of children are just

as excited when they play with our

wooden toys as their parents were

before them.

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We test our toys meticulouslyAt BRIO we know that safety doesn’t

only come down to materials.

Children are creative in their use of

toys, and sometimes they may use the

products in ways that the designer

had not even considered when the

toys were on the drawing board. That’s

why BRIO takes a greater responsibility

than the law demands. One example is

that we perform load tests with more

pressure than the required amount.

Another example is that we carry out

drop tests from greater heights.

But above all, our vast experience

and insistence on producing proven

concepts provide a strong guarantee

for BRIO’s durability. Our toys have

been tossed, squeezed, hugged,

beaten, chewed and sucked on by

children for decades.

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5000 tests a year

BRIO complies with international toy standards for durability. Additionally, BRIO performs approx. 5000 toy tests and inspections every year during and after production. Two-thirds of them are performed by external experts.

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Safe choice of materialsThough wood is the foundation of

many of our toys, we also use several

other materials, for instance when

producing a train set (as shown on

the image).

Magnets and other metal parts

may be included to assemble the

carriages and enable them to

move. And we use paint to create

a smooth and durable surface. All

in all, we work with thousands of

different components across BRIO’s

entire range of toys.

The raw materials we use are sub-

ject to rigorous testing both before

and after the processing.

Additionally, we continuously take

random samples of the toys during

production and of the completed

products to secure that they comply

with the demands from the authori-

ties and our own quality standards.

InternatIonal rules and legIslatIon

BRIO complies with applicable law on safety and materials outlined in more than 40 different standards and legislative statutes. This includes mechanical, physical and chemical standards for toys, the REACH regulation for chemicals in consumer products, the RoHS regulation for electronic products and Azo-Dye for coloring of fabric, just to mention a few.

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Metal parts

All metal parts in our toys are subject to strict quality demands to secure that they will not fall off or put children in danger in any way. This also includes smudging and substance remnants that children should not be exposed to. For instance, in 2011 we decided to change all our metal parts in our toys going forward because the technology had made it possible to reduce the potential content of nickel in the new metal parts.

Paint: Approx. 80% water-based, 20% nitrocellulose-based. Tested in accordance with applicable law.

Metal: Steel with no nickel release.

Wood: European re-planted beech

Magnet: Ferrite magnets (iron magnets). All magnets are enclosed and fixed to prevent them from becoming loose.

Plastic: The plastic is completely non-toxic and made from the most frequently used plastics within toy production. Free from PVC and phthalate.

Mega Crane 33555

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Responsible productionBRIO’s many toy models are sold all

over the world. However, production

is confined to China and the Czech

Republic. We have had production

in Sweden for more than a century,

expanding to China in 2003 and

2006. Some of the machines used

in production in China are originally

Swedish, and the Chinese employees

work under the same safe conditions

as in Sweden.

When we select suppliers, we focus

on long-term deals with companies

capable of delivering proper quality,

and doing so in a responsible way.

Our wood components have been

delivered by the same supplier since

2004 and our plastic components have

mostly been delivered by the same

supplier since 1993. We regularly send

BRIO representatives out to our sup-

pliers to stay in touch and ensure high

quality on a continuous basis.

We demand that our suppliers follow

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the ICTI Care process, which is the

toy industry’s ethical manufacturing

program aimed at ensuring safe and

humane workplace environments for

toy factory workers worldwide. BRIO

collaborates with the suppliers to

make sure the ICTI Care process is be-

ing followed, and we perform annual

inspections and change processes

together with the suppliers. An ex-

ample of a change implementation is

that we have enabled our suppliers to

reschedule their production through

smarter production planning, thus

avoiding seasonal peaks and ensuring

a smoother workflow.

At BRIO we are aware that this pack-

aging should not harm the environ-

ment. Therefore we make sure our

packaging complies with applicable

law, and we have made deals with

authorized waste collection firms to

collect packaging for recycling in the

countries where this is possible.

At BRIO we have four ground rules:

•All our toys must be safe for children to use

•All our materials have to be of high quality

•All our toys must always adhere to regulations and laws

•All our productions have to take place under socially responsible conditions

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