The Tova company was founded in 2002 by the Eide family – which includes Ingar, Margunn and their three children. Before they left for Mongolia that year, they had two children, and another offspring was born in Mongolia. Far away in Asia, the Eides were involved in a project by the Norad organization, which organized a training session focused on felting woolen products.

Ethical production

It was then that a collaboration between Norwegian and Mongolian designers was established and the result was fine wool products of high quality. The production still takes place in Mongolia, and the Norwegian company then protects the entire project with its name and marketing. And since 2006, when Tova was officially established under this name. That is, at the time when the Eide family returned home to Norway.

Today, the ethical production of slippers and other wool products supports approximately one hundred Mongolian families. The Norwegian founders, in cooperation with the development bank Inovasjon Norge, are trying to develop business in the region and to ensure that the beneficiaries of production profits become employees as much as possible. It is also a condition that production in Mongolia is based on local raw materials and that the development of people takes place here by Tova offering them decent working conditions as well as salary and development opportunities.

Ethical trade is generally about achieving decent working and environmental conditions in places where goods are produced, which are then sold (and consumed) mainly in the West. However, it is not enough that only producers have an ethical mindset, but also their consumers, i.e. end customers.

Quality felt products

Wool felting (toving in Norwegian, hence Tova) has a long tradition in Mongolia. It is thanks to its Mongolian employees that Tova can create high-quality felt products that build on Norwegian design and the tradition of Scandinavian wool. Tova, these are mainly high-quality slippers that are already as famous as the Mongolian wool felting tradition itself.

Tova's production takes place in the town of Darhan in northern Mongolia, not far from the border with Siberia. In this area, there is not only high unemployment, but also harsh conditions for life in general. The salaries of Tova employees are continuously adjusted depending on inflation, which is unfortunately quite high in Mongolia. The owners of the company are trying to ensure that its workers earn a good living even from the money earned during normal working hours.

Sustainable sheep farming

There are more sheep than people in Mongolia. There is also the merino breed, which gives the finest wool with unique properties for making clothes. But until recently, this breed was dying out here, which was reversed thanks to the Norwegian help. It is the merino wool from this breed that Tova uses in the making of its products.

The producer strives for sustainable production, which it ensures through direct communication with herdsmen. Thanks to this, the logistics of shearing and transporting wool are handled much better than before, and piles of wool are no longer rotting without use as they used to. Merino wool is now a sought-after intermediate product in Mongolia and thus a valuable source of income for shepherds and sheep farmers.

The leather soles of Tova slippers are then made from real cattle hide, which the people of the Norwegian company carefully select themselves. Fine merino wool is then processed with their own hands by skilled Mongolian employees who continue the mentioned long-term tradition.