Helsinki: good offering in specialist shops and wholefood stores

In December 2013 and June 2014, the two most recent specialist wholefood stores were opened by Ruohonjuuri. The name signifies grass roots. Four of the stores are in Helsinki and, since 2003, they have had a shop in Tampere (175 km to the north) and since 2006 another in Turku (167 km to the west). The big Eat&Joy fine food store in the centre of Helsinki became unsustainable, with the result that the company is now represented only in a number of shopping centres. Apart from in the conventional trade, you find organic products also in a couple of market halls and one fine food chain.
 

(Picture: Ruohonjuuri, the biggest specialist wholefood store in Helsinki)

Ruonhonjuuri's main outlet in downtown Helsinki has 250 m² of retail space and the store in the Hakaniemen district has around 150 m².The outlets in Tampere, that is regarded as an eco bastion, and in Turku are with 150 m² roughly the same size. The cooperative is sustained by about 200 members, including a number of organic organizations. (Picture: The main Ruohonjuuri store)

In December 2013, another store was opened in the Itäkeskus district of Helsinki, followed in May 2014 by a 160 m² outlet in the centre of the capital. The city centre store is opposite the main railway station and, according to one employee, is “doing much better than expected”. The design of the store in anthracite and light green is attractive and modern. The shelving is 1.9 m high (six levels) and the aisles are relatively narrow to accommodate more goods. An employee points out that a new development is smoothies, sandwiches and salads that they prepare fresh in a corner kitchen. The takeaway products are kept fresh on chilled shelves (picture on right).
 

Customers have a choice of four smoothies and three or four kinds of salads and sandwiches. For dessert there are a number of products containing the super food chia seeds. The packaging is either cardboard or degradable plastic. What is still missing, however, is hot soup for lunch and hot drinks that would sell well in this excellent location in a passage in a shopping centre. The total product range consists of around 3,500 articles, including fruit and vegetables. What has no doubt contributed to its success is the fact that from the outside you can look inside through the front of the store that consists entirely of glass. (Picture on left: Lime green design in the new store)
 

The six Ruohonjuuri stores are kept stocked by about 50 suppliers. The products are not supplied by wholefood wholesalers as in Germany who bundle together the goods streams. Since only a small proportion of goods are produced in Finland itself, many products have to be imported, with German organic brands especially well represented. However, if the supplies don't come direct from German wholesalers, various middlemen and importers add to the price of products. (Picture on right: Ruohonjuuri store that opened in an arcade in July 2014)
 

Ruohonjurri sources only bread, bakery goods and strawberries in season direct from the area surrounding the capital. Its total product range consists of about 4,000 articles, including a  wide selection of natural cosmetics (picture). The company concentrates on the well known cosmetics brands Lavera, Santé, Dr. Hauschka and Mádara from Latvia. Flow Kosmetikka is the only Finnish firm to offer a fairly wide range of soaps, shower gels, etc. With 20 sorts of loose washing, cleaning and bodycare products, consumers can fill their own containers at a cheaper price. (Picture: Customers take full advantage of the loose washing and cleaning products)
 

Further stores are under consideration or are in the planning phase in, an example being Espoo in greater Helsinki. They trial locations with a medium-size store of around 150 m². If it proves to be successful they can then move to bigger premises. A webshop has been available since 2011, which in Finland, with its wide open spaces, is important for consumers living a long way from a wholefood store.

Ekolo is the name of a community enterprise that operates a 206 m² wholefood store in the Hakaniemen district to the north of the city centre (picture). The aim of the store, that was opened at a different location in 2004, is to improve the availability of vegan food. You won't find dairy and meat products in this store situated in a side street not far from the centre of Hakaniemen that has a market hall and open-air market on the generously proportioned Siltasaari Square. Ekolo is furnished with wooden shelving that gives the impression of a typical wholefood store. The staff are friendly and helpful. In 2004, they established a second store in Jyväskylä, 250 km to the north of Helsinki, that was relocated last year. Jyväskylä is in central Finland and, with 133,000 inhabitants, is the seventh biggest city in Suomi – the Finnish name for the country. Apart from the two stores, they also run a wholesale business and the biggest webshop/home delivery service in Finland. A list on the internet tells customers which brands are stocked by the store – from Numi tea, Bio-Planète and Hanf-Natur, Bonvita and Govinda to Oasis.
 

In the Hakaniemen market hall you find a very nicely presented organic fruit and vegetable stall (18 m²) that Satu Koivuniemi has run for the last ten years. Every day, 50 – 200 people buy the produce on the stall that stands first in line when you enter the hall. So customers can shop on three sides of Satu Koivuniemi's stall. It's a full-time job, because the stall is open from 8.00 to 18.00, ten hours a day, six days a week. She has the use of a small cellar (6m²) to store her unsold goods overnight. The fresh fruit and vegetables are so eye-catching that it's not only organic enthusiasts who shop here. However, Mrs Koivuniemi doesn't find it easy to always get the best produce.

The wholesaler Satotu KKU, that stocks mainly conventional products but also some organics, often doesn't have the selection she needs. And the French wholefood wholesaler Dynamis where she often orders her stock is a long way away in Rungis outside the gates of Paris. The company dispatches the orders on Tuesdays and they arrive on Fridays, which doesn't leave much time to sell the goods. As well as fruit and vegetables on display she keeps a small range of longer-life products on shelves at the back – for example, tomato sauce, rice, noodles, pesto, vinegar and oil. Satu Koivuniemi regrets that there isn't a second organic outlet in the market hall with its special ambience or in the open-air market. “If there were, organics would have a much greater presence and I wouldn't be fighting alone,” she explains. (Picture on left: Ekolo wholefood store in the Hakaniemen district)
 

In the equally worth seeing market hall Vanha Kauppahalli, that was founded in 1888, Kaarina – nearly 70 years old – has been selling mainly fresh organic products for the last 20 years on her stall Vegetaari K&K. On ten square metres in the middle of the hall (stall 4) she offers fruit and vegetables, freshly prepared salads and a tasty blueberry ice cream with vanilla -millet sauce. The hall by the harbour, renovated in harmony with its original style with built-in wooden stalls, offers a unique ambience not only for shopping but for a meal or coffee. Opposite Kaarina is a conventional butcher who sells organic meat as well. (Picture: Kaarina at her organic market stall)

Anton & Anton is a fine food shop where about two-thirds of what they sell is organic. Close by the church at Museokatu 19, a kilometre to the west of the railway station, it's is a typical local corner shop. However, customers have to check every single product to see if it's organic. A fresh fish counter, a meat counter and takeaway items like wraps and pasta pockets are evidence that the shop focuses on fresh produce. In conversation with a sales assistant, we discovered that only some of the loaves on the shelves were organic and they were not labelled as such. Anton & Anton has three shops in Helsinki and a delivery service with standard bags for €48, €60 and €68. (Pictures on left and below: Anton & Anton shop)
 

There are more eco projects in Finland. An organic training facility called Mäntslälän Puutarhaoppilaitos has started operating. The eco city plan of Helsinki, published by the Association of Finnish Entrepreneurs, contains more organic stores, as well as restaurants that use organic ingredients, natural textile shops and shops selling natural goods.

Tips:

www.ruohonjurri.fi

www.ekolo.fi

www.eatandjoy.fi

www.antonanton.fi