From a humble village market fish stall, Finland’s Hätälä is en route to turnover EUR 170 million by 2025.
Christmas is in full swing in Finland and the country’s main salmon processor is giving its new flaming and hot-smoking lines a run for its money, producing up to 4 tonnes of raw material an hour.
In the previous article, Vice CEO Matti Isohätälä explained the company was expanding with EUR 30 million investment programme to support its 18,000 metric tonnes-a-year outage.
Exports
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Export Manager Juha Pahtamaa told SalmonBusiness that in terms of getting their fish products out of the country, growth and new markets were part of the wider Hätälä strategy.
Furthmore, Pahtamaa said that it was focusing heavily on product development, boosted by – in part – a partnership with a Finnish-French Michelin star chef Jouni Törmänen.
“Our unique product portfolio supports this action and products are currently for sale in Germany, France, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland – primarily in leading retail chain stores. Hätälä’s products are sold both under our own brand and as private label products for retail chains. Export sales are currently 10% of the turnover. Our aim is to have 35% turnover from export markets until 2025. For support we have BRC certificated production since 2015,” he said.
- Read more: Hätälä: “Our newest flaming and hot-smoking lines are producing raw material up to 4000kg/hour”
“Our leading product for export is original Finnish flamed salmon. When producing flamed salmon, in which we have decades of experience, we combine modern technology with the traditional technique of flaming in front of an open flame. This Christmas flamed salmon is making a breakthrough in Europe. Consumer researches show that 97% of people love this unique fish product when tasting it first time,” he said.
2025
Looking ahead, Isohätälä was confident about future numbers.
“Hätälä’s turnover for 2019 will be about EUR 120 million. By 2025, the turnover should be EUR 170 million, of which a third comes from exports. All our products are produced in the factory in Oulu. Our company permanently employs 200 people, seasonally employs up to 350 people and offers work to over 450 fishermen in Finland,” he added.
