11 Famous Slovenian Brands: My favourite companies from Slovenia — BREG

For a country of just 2 million people, Slovenia has an impressive number of companies that have made their mark on the world. As I continue to grow my own BREG brand – Slovenia-inspired apparel – I am inspired by some of the Slovene companies that I find around me.

Note, this is by no means an exhaustive list of all well-known Slovene companies. There are many others that are known on the global scale (for example Krka Pharmaceuticals and Gorenje homeware) but I have only included Slovenian companies and products that I have an interest in or affinity with personally.

Cockta

Ever since I first visited Slovenia in 2007, Cockta has provided me with a reliable source of school boy humour. Created as an alternative to Coca-Cola (often dubbed ‘Yugoslavian Coke’), the brand seems to have a special place in the hearts of Slovenians, has run some beautifully kitsch advertising campaigns through the years, and is a pretty tasty carbonated beverage to boot. I honoured Cockta in my A-Ž of Reasons Why I Live In Slovenia, here.

Pipistrel

It’s fascinating to me that Slovenia has a globally renowned company that make planes. Founded in 1989, Pipistrel are manufacturers of light aircraft and have produced more than 2000 planes since they opened. Forward thinking, they are heavily involved in the development of electric aircraft, and are a respected brand worldwide.

Delamaris

I have always loved the artwork on the tins of canned fish from all over the world. For some reason, they are one of the few food products that still use printed cans (rather than paper labels) and the artwork on such cans is often beautifully done. Delamaris have a great range of lovely looking tins, which I marvel at every time I’m in a Slovenian supermarket. Indeed their tins were part of my inspiration for the creation of my Slovenian ‘Tinned [Human] Fish’ – t-shirt.

Read more about the Human [Tinned] Fish t-shirt here

Laško

Laško is one of the two dominant beers in Slovenia, the other being the Ljubljana-based Union. At one time, Slovenes were extremely loyal to either Laško or Union, and I’ve heard stories that ordering the ‘wrong’ beer in the wrong bar could start a fight. It was a ‘Ljubljana Vs The Rest of Slovenia’ kind of beef. These days, The Great Laško Vs Union Divide is no longer the cause of pub brawls, especially since the rise in smaller, craft breweries which has provided a welcome expansion to the Slovenian beer menu. My favourite variety of Laško is their IPA – a deliciously hoppy brew.

Tektonik

Not only do I love the tasty beer that those crafty brewers at Tektonik make, but I love their logo. The little face reminds me of a Japanese character called Dokumon who was a mascot for a Japanese TV channel during my two years of living in Japan. This is almost certainly a coincidence, although I have before written about some surprising similarities between Japan and Slovenia. There are many great Slovenian brewers, including HumanFish and LOO-BLAH-NAH, but for me, it’s that little Tektonik-teeth-face that catches my eye most.

TAM

Tovarna Avtomobilov Maribor (TAM) was/is a company that built trucks. Based in Maribor, Slovenia’s second city (hence the name), it once manufactured vehicles that were popular all over the former Yugoslavia and beyond. The brand has been resurrected and the company now produces airport and city buses, but it earns a place on my favourite Slovene brands list for its old, classic trucks, which you still see around Slovenia, sometimes restored as food trucks, or even repurposed as bee hives.

A TAM truck converted into a food truck with a great name TAMnjam (njam means ‘yum!’ in Slovenian). As seen in Ljubljana.

An old TAM truck, repurposed as bee hives, as seen near Bled, Slovenia

Rog Bikes

Like TAM, Rog was a Slovenian/Yugoslavian success story, which faded away after Slovenian independence, only to be revived again in later years. I like Rog because it’s a true Ljubljana brand. The original Rog factory, though now defunct, still stands, close to the centre of Ljubljana. It’s become an anarchist-art-zone squat, which is very interesting but a whole other blog post in itself.

IMG_20191011_135415(1).jpg — An original ROG Ljubljana touring bike - as seen in Ljubljana.

Rog bikes were obviously well made as half of Ljubljana’s bike-riding population still cruise around on one despite production ceasing in 1991. Their most iconic model - the Rog Pony - was a foldable bike with a very distinct shape, and it’s this line of Rog bikes that has been reborn again.

One of the new Rog Ponys. The Rog brand is born again.

The Rog Pony bikes are so iconic in Slovenia, that Red Bull set up an annual race - the Goni Pony - where competitors take on a gruelling hill climb, then tear down the Vršič Pass - an incredible mountain road in west Slovenia - on the vintage, single-gear Pony bikes.

The Red Bull Goni Pony takes place on Slovenia’s iconic Vršič Pass - an incredible mountain road in the Julian Alps. Get the Vršič Pass t-shirt here.

Slovenske železnice (Slovenian Railways)

I’ve long been a fan of letting the train take the strain; there’s something very relaxing about chugging along on rails. While Slovenia doesn’t have much (anything) in the way of a high-speed network, Slovenske železnice - the national rail company, have a reasonably well-connected service which can get you around the country and beyond.

The red and yellow livery on the newer Slovenske železnice trains is the most commonly seen, but I really like some of the paintwork on older Slovenian trains and indeed, it was the colour scheme on one old train that inspired the retro colour stripes for my Ljubljana – L – J – Triglav t-shirt.

A graffiti-adorned Slovenian train as seen in Ljubljana. Intriguingly, the cleaner of the train has removed the graffiti from the windows and train logo - but left the rest in place.

Elan

As a winter sports fan, Elan is a very interesting company for me. A pioneer in ski design, they invented the now-standard parabolic ski shape, and have had a huge impact on the ski industry, far beyond the borders of Slovenia. The Elan ski museum is a fascinating place where I discovered that Elan have made all sorts of other sports equipment, though skis remain their most well-known.

The Elan logo through the ages, as seen at the Elan ski museum in Slovenia.

Moonchild Snowboards

Elan isn’t the only winter sports equipment brand to come out of Slovenia. A more recent appearance is Moonchild. Co-founded by a former Elan designer, the Moonchild brand make beautiful snowboards and splitboards with highly unusual shapes for deep snow and backcountry powder riding. As a long-time fan of snowboarding, and more recently a splitboarder, I really love what Moonchild are doing and will be keeping a close eye on their progress.

A selection of Moonchild’s unusual board shapes

Adria Mobil

Not to be confused with Adria Airways, the now-defunct Slovenian national airline, this Adria make caravans, campervans and motorhomes. The Adria brand is more than half a century old, and the classic old Adria caravans have now become something of a nostalgia trip for Slovenes, bringing back memories of family holidays on the Croatian coast. Some of these old vans still live on, abandoned in fields, or restored as quirky cafes.

NiceHash

Slovenia was and still is a hotspot for cryptocurrency and blockchain companies. NiceHash was ahead of the game, starting back in 2014, way before your mum had heard of bitcoin. They foresaw the benefits of a decentralised currency, and created a global marketplace for the buying and selling of hashing power.

For the crypto-ignorant, that means it’s a place where you can sell your computer’s processing power to mine bitcoin, or buy others’ mining resource there. When I first arrived here I had no idea Slovenia had such as pedigree in this area, but I ended up working for a blockchain business for a while, which was a fascinating insight into this new technology.

As you can see, my favourite Slovenian brands and companies span a range of industries, from trains, planes and automobiles, to blockchain and breweries.

It’s one of the things that continues to surprise me about Slovenia; it maybe small but it’s highly concentrated with interesting people, places and products.

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