Finnish Organic Supermarket Chain

With a population of 5.3 million, the Finnish market is relatively small. The organic market in Finland has been growing steadily for years. From 2017 to 2018 alone, it grew by 8.7 percent to a sales volume of 336 million euros. In order to compete against the big conventional stores, the only Finnish organic supermarket chain has to be innovative.

The food industry in Finland has undergone a major structural change, similar to that in other European countries. “Everything has become very commercial”, says nutrition expert Riitta Okkonnen, “there are hardly any butchers or bakeries left”. In fact, 95 percent of trade is in the hands of large chains. There are hardly any organic shops, apart from a few organic stalls in an old market hall here and there. The only organic supermarket chain is based in Helsinki: Ruohonjuuri (engl.: grass root) has 15 stores around the capital and Southern Finland. Under the name Happy Food Store, the retailer has also opened a store in Stockholm, with another Swedish site to follow this year. They are also planning to expand to smaller Finnish cities in the future.

“Everything is self-financed”, reports Jussi Aimola, purchasing manager of the organic chain, proudly “we don’t take out loans”. The concept seems to be working: the company had a turnover of 25 million Euro in 2018, this year the milestone of 30 million Euro is to be exceeded. “We do it in our own way”, explains Aimola, adding  that there are no outside investors involved, but several private private individuals from the green sector.

Few fresh goods and milk products

The very moment you enter the flagship store in the Kamppi district in Helsiki you notice: The range of fruit and vegetables on offer is modest, as is the assortment of milk products. There are no counters for cheese, meat or baked goods. “There are only three shops left where we offer fruit and vegetables at all”, says 40-year-old Aimola. Take-away, bakery and meat have all been tried before, but had to be discontinued. A negative business. According to Aimola, the competition of the local retail chains is simply to strong. The Fins by their fresh produce primarily in conventional markets. “Organic is available in every small supermarket”, explains the purchasing manager. Instead, his challenge is to constantly position the supermarket chain with new products and list what the big chains don’t have. This is almost heading in the direction of specialties. For example, Ruohonjuuri prefers high-quality Ethiopian coffee variety, such as cardamom coffee or coffee with Chaga mushrooms. Understandably, as a pound of normal coffee costs 3.49 Euro with Stockmann, 3.65 Euro with Alepa and only 3.45 Euro with Lidl. These and other shops are all within easy reach of the store. In comparison, the cheapest coffee at Ruohonjuuri costs 4.90 Euro.

Grass root as trendsetter

Ruohonjuuri has to score from a different direction. “We see ourselves as trendsetters and try a lot to keep abreast of innovations”, reports Aimola, who is a regular visitor of the BioFach. Superfoods and nuts are going very well right now, and Matcha tea and Kombucha are the hits at the moment. On the other hand, the paleo trend is already over. Aimola says that “the existing suppliers are all labelling their assortment to ‘Keto’ now”, a low-carbohydrate and high-protein form of nutrition. Therefore, dry foods are currently the strongest sales driver.

Aimola travels a lot and looks at organic shops all over the world to learn or collect ideas. From Whole Foods in London, for example, he has learned that you can tighten the products in the shelves to have more space. This is reflected in the at least five rows of closely arranged food supplements – another strong sales group. Algae as well as moringa, fruit and vegetable powder are listed in additional areas. Functional food and beverages with special benefits are running well, as demonstrated by the spacious refrigerated counters for drinks only. Protein powder has its own shelf, as have fruit, nut and sweet bars.

In other respects, Ruohonjuuri focuses strongly on customer advice, employees are trained continuously and the focus in the Happy Food Store – so the positioning – is on being “super friendly” and “happy” when dealing with customers. 100 percent certified organic products are not available here, however. 90 percent of the food sector is certified, the dietary supplements mostly not. The supermarket chain is also less strict with natural cosmetics: “Here we also include brands that could be certified, but aren’t for cost reasons”, says Aimola.

Insects as kitchen decoration

But when it comes to real innovations like novel food or avoiding packaging, the stores get creative. Food made from insects was sold as kitchen decoration until it was legal. CBD products, i.e. cannabis-based products, were offered as cosmetics – but were recently banned from the shelves by inspectors. A similar fate could befall the detergents. Because self-filling from plastic bottles is not yet permitted in Finland for hygienic reasons. Ruohonjuuri offers it anyway. A total of 6,500 original products are offered in the large stores (300 square meters), the smaller stores offer around 2,500.

Read also:

Dennree cracks the billion-euro-barrier

How did the fiscal year 2018 go for Dennree? The organic pioneer took stock at the Biofach press conference. Marketing Director Lukas Nossol also commented on the cooperation of Bioland and Lidl.

EU Eco-Regulation: First concrete rules available for comments

The new EU Eco-Regulation will still have to be complemented by numerous rules. The first of these were made available online for comments by the EU Commission.

Nordic Organic Food Fair in Scandinavia

The latest organically certified food products and beverages will be presented in Malmö, Sweden, from 13th to 14th November. In cooperation with Eco Life Scandinavia, 500 exhibitors from various countries will be participating at the combined trade fairs.