Inside a Lego Factory, Where Christmas Wishes Come True

Lego employs more than 20,000 people around the world -- more than a quarter of them in Billund. Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
Lego employs more than 20,000 people around the world -- more than a quarter of them in Billund. Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
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Inside a Lego Factory, Where Christmas Wishes Come True

Lego employs more than 20,000 people around the world -- more than a quarter of them in Billund. Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
Lego employs more than 20,000 people around the world -- more than a quarter of them in Billund. Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP

As a boy, Samuel Tacchi was crazy about Lego cranes. Now he designs them, under cloak-and-dagger secrecy, at the Danish group's headquarters where Santa has filled his sacks for decades.

At its ultra-modern flagship building in Billund, a visit to the offices where the design work is done is out of the question -- the company is fiercely protective of its trade secrets, AFP said.

But Tacchi, a 34-year-old Frenchman, lifts the veil a smidgen on the creative process, standing at a display featuring some of the brand's colorful toy kits.

"I always start with a little sketch on paper about what I have in mind", says Tacchi, who designs for the Lego Technic series.

"Then I start to build the technical layout: the drive train, steering, and starting to build with the function. And then I dive into the styling."

"Then afterwards we dive into the computer."

His office is a child's dream come true, chocka-block with Lego Technic pieces.

"We have an elements shelf behind our backs. It's easy to reach and fix some elements, build them together and see if (our idea) works," he says.

In his seven years with the company, Tacchi has helped create around 25 kits.

- From start-up to multinational -
A family-owned company, Lego employs more than 20,000 people around the world -- more than a quarter of them in Billund, which is also home to its oldest factory.

Here, in a huge hall where robots move about like in a choreographed dance, hundreds of thousands of pieces are manufactured each day.

Colorful plastic is molded into familiar shapes: bricks, figurines, hair, dragon wings and tires (Lego is reported to be the biggest tyre manufacturer in the world!)

Sorted and stored by model in large crates in an adjoining warehouse, the pieces are then sent to other factories to be included in kits.

While everything is made of plastic today, the toy empire was founded by a carpenter very conscious of the quality of the wood he used.

In 1932, in the middle of the Great Depression, Ole Kirk Kristiansen began making wooden toys, winning the favor of Danish children with his yo-yos.

"He sold the yo-yo to every child in Billund and... (when every child had one) he couldn't sell anymore. But he still had them laying around," explains Signe Wiese, Lego's resident historian.

"So instead of throwing them out or just leaving them, he reused them. He split the yo-yos in half and he used them for wheels on wagons."

Four years later, having given up on carpentry, he named his new company "Lego", a contraction of the Danish "Leg godt", which means "Play well".

With a shortage of raw materials after World War II, Kirk Kristiansen gradually turned towards plastic and invested his life savings in an injection molding machine.

"He was really fascinated with the technology and the machinery and the material itself," says Wiese.

"So for him, it seems to have been a pretty easy decision, in spite of the fact that everyone was actually advising him against it."

The idea for the bricks came later.

Initially they were made without Lego's famed "clutch power" -- the mechanism that makes it possible to click the bricks together.

The design was patented in 1958, paving the way for an endless catalogue of figures, shapes and kits.

Now, Lego is the biggest toymaker in the world, ahead of Japan's Bandai Namca and US groups Hasbro and Mattel, according to market analysts Statista.

This year, Lego says its catalogue of toys is bigger than ever before, but refuses to disclose the exact number. Another trade secret...



S.Africa's Iconic Protea Flower Relocates as Climate Warms

Protea flower grower Nico Thuynsma cultivates the blooms north of Johannesburg, 1,500 km (930 miles) from their natural home at the southern tip of Africa. Phill Magakoe / AFP
Protea flower grower Nico Thuynsma cultivates the blooms north of Johannesburg, 1,500 km (930 miles) from their natural home at the southern tip of Africa. Phill Magakoe / AFP
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S.Africa's Iconic Protea Flower Relocates as Climate Warms

Protea flower grower Nico Thuynsma cultivates the blooms north of Johannesburg, 1,500 km (930 miles) from their natural home at the southern tip of Africa. Phill Magakoe / AFP
Protea flower grower Nico Thuynsma cultivates the blooms north of Johannesburg, 1,500 km (930 miles) from their natural home at the southern tip of Africa. Phill Magakoe / AFP

On his farm two hours north of Johannesburg, Nico Thuynsma gestured towards thousands of orange, yellow and pink proteas in flower and thriving 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from their natural home at the southern tip of Africa.

"They're all different," the 55-year-old farmer said of the assorted blooms from the diverse Proteaceae family that has more than 350 species in South Africa, from firework-like "pincushion" varieties to delicate "blushing brides".

He picked out a majestic pink and white crown, nearly the size of his head, that has taken four years to reach its impressive size. "The King Proteas are very slow to grow," Thuynsma said.

The largest of the proteas, the King Protea, is South Africa's national flower.

It has lent its name to the national cricket team and countless brands. It features on the currency and is the logo for South Africa's presidency this year of the G20 group of leading economies, which convenes a summit in November.

It is also the country's largest flower export with more than 10 million stems sent abroad last year, worth close to 275 million rand ($15 million), according to the Cape Flora industry organization, said AFP.

Its status offers the King Protea some protection but almost half of South Africa's other protea species face extinction because of pressures on their native habitats in the mountains of the Cape, according to South Africa's National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI).

These include habitat loss to agriculture, the proliferation of invasive alien species and "changes to natural fire cycles", SANBI said in a 2021 report.

Icon

"People come to South Africa to see proteas," Nigel Barker, a professor in plant sciences at the University of Pretoria, told AFP. "It's the plant equivalent of the elephant or the lion."

Most proteas are endemic or semi-endemic to the Cape Floral Kingdom biome of "fynbos" ("fine bush") that stretches across the southern tip of South Africa and is one of the world's richest flora biodiversity hotspots.

But climate projections predict "hotter, drier conditions", Barker said. "We'll be looking at a completely different vegetation type in the future, semi-desert almost in some places."

"Many species, because they're so range-restricted, will probably go extinct under those scenarios," he said.

"The only solution we have is to cultivate them artificially... in greenhouses or farms where you control irrigation," Barker said.

An example is Thuynsma's farm in the grasslands of the north, where he began planting proteas three decades ago.

Here, winters are dry and frosty, and the summers rainy -- conditions very different to those in the far south where the proteas are at home.

Gel for irrigation

Through trial and error, Thuynsma has been able to cultivate close to 200 protea varieties, including some long forgotten and abandoned by farmers in their original habitats.

In his latest experiment, he has planted 36 varieties with just two liters (four pints) of saturated gel for irrigation.

"I hope to unlock the power of some of these varieties," Thuynsma said. "They come from the Western Cape out of very harsh conditions, so they do have it in them."

"I learn from them, I learn with them. And, hopefully, in the future I can advise my nursery public -- and even estates -- how to plant this lovely fynbos without irrigation," he said.

"I don't think I have a solution for climate change," he joked, crouched over a small seedling in freshly turned soil. "But I do have a solution: to plant proteas."

A few meters (yards) away, in a warm nursery, thousands of protea sprouts awaited their turn in the soil.

"I love them, I protect them, I collect them," Thuynsma said. "The protea is part of South Africa's DNA."