Ikea's restaurants were failing. Then it turned to Swedish meatballs
CNN
Ikea is known for sprawling showrooms, cheap flat-pack furniture and, of course, Swedish meatballs.
The retail giant sells more than a billion of its trademark Swedish meatballs at cafeterias in stores every year. The meatballs have become a symbol of Ikea's friendly Scandinavian brand image and central to the retailer's strategy of keeping customers browsing inside stores for hours — and getting them to pick up a new bed or couch after they finish eating.
Meatballs are "the best sofa-seller," Gerd Diewald, who led Ikea's US food operations at the time, said in a 2017 interview.
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