Brio (stylized BRIO) is a wooden toy company founded in the small town of Boalt, Scania, Götaland (Sweden) in 1884 by basket maker Ivar Bengtsson. For a long time the company was based in Osby, Scania, in southern Sweden. In 1908 Ivar’s three sons took the company over and gave it the name “BRIO”, which is an acronym for: BRöderna (‘the brothers’) Ivarsson (in) Osby. In 2006 BRIO moved its headquarters to Malmö, Scania. BRIO is best known for its wooden toy trains, sold in Europe since 1958: most are non-motorized and suitable for younger children.
The cars connect with magnets and are easy to manipulate; in recent years, the range has been extended with battery powered, remote control, and ‘intelligent track’ driven engines. In 1984, the company started the ‘BRIO Lekoseum’ (from Swedish “leka”, to play), a toy museum featuring the company’s products as well as those of other companies at the headquarters in Osby, where children can play with many of the toys. Since 2014 the museum has been run as an independent foundation, hence the official name is now only ‘Lekoseum’. In 2015, BRIO was acquired by the Ravensburger Group.
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