Company history

The origins of the plant can be traced back to 1960s, when sites of the Kvēle Metal Product Factory were moved from Riga to Aizpute and the Aizpute Integrated Plant specialising in manufacturing of keys and ironmongery was established. Five years later the Kvēle Factory was closed, but the integrated plant was renamed into the Kurzeme Metal Hardware Plant. There letters in the lock plant logotype MFR (metāla furnitūras rūpnīca) still remind of that.

New technologies were introduced into manufacturing: automation of manufacturing individual parts and assemblies, new technologies in the plating process to plate parts with zinc, nickel and chrome. Productivity of work increased: the plant employed 1000 persons in 1976, and only 900 in 1980, while producing 6 times more products. In the middle of nineteen seventies, a new building was built and the Kurzeme Plant became a large manufacturer of locks and ironmongery and supplied the entire Soviet Union with its products.

Over the years the plant was expanded becoming one of the leading manufacturers of hardware for windows and doors in the Baltic countries.

1890

Ģertrūde Lindberga establishes a cardboard factory in Aizpute.
1904

The factory produces boxes and labels for the needs of chemistries. Staff: 9 men, 20 women, 13 children. The production facility works on a kerosene engine. Its products are supplied to chemistries and pharmaceutical plants of the czarist Russia.
1909

The plant employs 150 persons.
1932

The factory of Ģertrūde Lindberga operates in the following fields: mills, cardboard, seal labels, presses, paper products, motors, locksmiths, saw mills, dye-houses.
1934

The factory has 19 production rooms, cardboard products are exported to Lithuania to customers in Kaunas, Klaipėda, Kėdainiai, Marijampolė, Mažeikiai, Palanga, Panevežys and Šiauliai.
1938

A Credit Bank becomes the owner of the factory and the production facility is renamed into the Latvian Credit Bank Aizpute Cardboard Factory.
1943

Factory premises host shops for repair of German war machines and weapons.
1945

The Aizpute District Integrated Plant is created on the basis of the factory. Products – agricultural tools: carts, wheels, barrels. Several mills, saw mills and brick plants work for the Integrated Plant. There were also weaving, tissue dyeing, wool yarn treatment shops. A furniture production facility opens later. The integrated plant employs 164 persons – weavers, carpenters, millers and different minor craftsmen.
1950

The gross product output is 427,000 roubles, products are the same, raw materials – local.
1955

The output of products reaches 993,000 roubles, the number of employees – 281.
1960

The Kvēle Metal Product Factory is moved from Riga to Aizpute and the Aizpute Lock and Ironmongery Plant is established. It lays the foundations for the factory as it exists right now. Apart from locks and ironmongery it also produces electrodes. Product output – 1,620,000 roubles, number of employees – 753.
1965

The Aizpute Lock and Ironmongery Plant is renamed into the Kurzeme Metal Hardware Plant, or Kurzeme MHP. The work is organised in 3 shifts.
1978

A new production building is built.
1996

Kurzeme MHP is transformed into Joint Stock Company Kurzemes Atslēga-1 and its shares are listed on the Riga Stock Exchange.
2000

The company started to produce different types of customised metal products and continues doing this today as well.
2001

The company starts working in a new auxiliary field – manufacturing of metal forgings.
2010

The company starts working in the woodworking field.

This information has been prepared based on the plant archives and materials from the book of I.Silārs and V. Sants “Aizpute. Past and Present”.