Looft Industries is the innovative Swedish company behind the trendsetting Looftlighter. Our product is our own original invention and was the first bbq lighter to use heated air to start the grill. Looft Industries puts the environment as a high priority and is very proud that the Looftlighter is eliminating the need of lighter fluid to light charcoal or wood.
About Looft Industries
We started selling the Looftlighter in Sweden 2006 and it has now sold over 300.000 pieces in more than 30 countries – worldwide. We continue to promote and find new markets for the Looftlighter with focus on quality, great customer experience and good food.
The Looftlighter story
Life before the Looftlighter
Before inventing the Looftlighter Richard Looft had worked as a theatre and film director all his life. As an employee of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm he worked with the iconic Swedish director Ingmar Bergman for more than ten years. He also won a Swedish Grammy for best music video. Besides his work in theatre and film he was also a great food enthusiast and had always been interested in technical innovation.
The Lightbulb
The first step towards the Looftlighter was taken in 1997 when Richard was grilling a whole chicken while having people over for dinner. When it was finally done the chicken only tasted of lighter fluid which resulted in anger and a phone call to the nearest pizza place to replace his chicken. He knew he could come up with a better way to light a barbecue and decided to do something about it. Richard took a toaster, poured charcoal into it, turned the air flow around in an old vacuum cleaner and realized he had discovered the fastest way in the world to get the charcoal going.
Full throttle
In 2003 he quit his job and took his ugly prototype and started up Looft Industries in 2005. Richard then travelled to China to find a factory. After hard work and many rejections, he finally found a factory that would produce his dream into reality with quality workmanship and came back to Sweden in 2006 with a container of 5000 Looftlighters. When he called up the main buyer at Nordiska Kompaniet, the best department store in Stockholm, she hung up on him. He then took his grill, set it up on the street outside the shop and called up again to ask for one minute of her time. Impressed by his persistence she came out and placed their first order right there in the street after Richard’s 60 second demonstration.