4 The editorial
Chief editor Veli Saarenheimo recommends the companies to check their visions and strategies while keeping in mind the economic situation of today.
We all know that with a lot of money in the cash box everything goes well. But problems might arise if you have to keep the wheels going with loaned money. Now we have to analyze our line of business and the own company in a larger perspective. What is happening in our surroundings? We must have a clear vision of the situation in order to be able to continue our operations.
The Finnish Food and Drink Industries Federation FFDIF has already begun their analyzing work and later on we will get the results. What are we good at and what must we improve? What are our possibilities and what can threaten us in the future?
Evira has reminded the meat branch that it is important that we use the correct names on our products as not to mislead the consumers.

8 Additives concern the consumers
Lihalehti has made a survey and now we know that several consumers are concerned about the additives and consider them unhealthy. Out of five consumers two consumers were very or extremely concerned, two consumers were a little concerned and one consumer was not bothered at all. Especially additives in sweets, snacks and beverages worried the consumers. Women were more worried than men. In the survey two questions were asked.
- Why do additives worry you?
- In which foodstuffs are additives especially worrying?
719 persons over 15 years of age answered the questions. Over 80% of the participants were of the opinion that additives were unhealthy.

12 Customer-oriented operations
Suomen Lähikauppa Oy has taken into use a new strategy that creates new possibilities both for the big national chains and for the small suppliers. Simultaneously the shops Siwa, Valintatalo and Euromarket changed their common name Tradeka to Suomen Lähikauppa and took into use a new strategy where the customer is in the center of the operations. Now they focus on small local shops. According to Leena Saarinen, md at Suomen Lähikauppa, they have the largest network of local shops in Finland.
- We believe that small local shops are a growing trend but in the future they probably will differ from the small shops of today.
Saarinen points out that local shops are located near the settlement. 90% of the consumers want to have their shop in their neighborhood. The shops are visited about three times a week. She believes that the assortment in the shops will grow and that the assortment in the different shops will differ more than today. She is also of the opinion that the new customer-oriented strategy will create new possibilities both for the industry and the suppliers. For instance will products from small suppliers be included in our assortment, points Leena Saarinen out.

15 Appointments
At the Finnish Food and Drink Industries Federation Annika Lindholm has been appointed representative at the unit for the labourmarket. Circuit judge Mika Lallo has been appointed assistant md at the same unit.

16 The meat grinder and the recipe of the month
Snellman focuses on fresh minced meat that has not been frozen. In Finland minced meat is one of the most popular raw materials. Our consumption has during the last ten years doubled and we consume 30 million/kg/year. The Finns appreciate the freshness of minced meat and its profitable price. It is hoped that the new product “Fresh not frozen minced meat” will come up to expectations.
The president of Finland has nominated the INNOSUOMI 2008 prizes.
The purpose of INNOFINLAND is to promote creativity, skill, entrepreneurial spirit and co-operation in Finland in a practical and creative way in order to nationally improve opportunities for well-being. President of the Republic Tarja Halonen acts as the patron of the project. INNOFINLAND promotes and introduces innovations. The theme for INNOFINLAND 08 was 'Climate and energy'. Climate change has become one of the major challenges for Finland and the whole world. Will we be able to develop more effective products and enhanced services for our clients who are increasingly aware of environmental issues? The market for environment and energy technology products grows by 20 to 30 per cent annually. This year, INNOFINLAND puts a special focus on introducing and advancing innovations that have a positive effect on climate change and that pertain to energy production or use. Prize-winning entrepreneurs were: Biovakka Suomi Oy. The enterprise produces biogas from organic raw materials for instance from manure from farms, biowaste from the society and the retail trade.
Finnchain Oy, that signifies a strong capability in the field of chains, especially for environmental technology applications. Their main products are chain scraper systems used for waste water- and water purification perocesses.
ILoq Oy, their revolutionary iLoq S10 electronic locking system integrates modern mechatronic, communication and software technologies enabling a new level of high-security throughout the lifetime of a locking system.
Preseco Oy, provides comprehensive and a creative environmental solutions that turn waste streams into an asset. Bio waste treatment, water and water waste treatment, biodiesel production.
St1 Biofuels Oy. Their vision is simply to be the leading seller and producer of CO₂ good energy, making the world's most sustainable CO₂ good transportation fuel. The bioethanol is made from waste by new extremely energy efficient process and business concept. It is a sustainable solution in the global fight against climate change. The bioethanol is made from waste and industrial side streams with the Etanolix® method. Special prizes were awarded:
Enervent Oy Ab has manufactured ventilation units for 25 years. The goal was clear from the beginning; finding technology that has a higher energy recovery rate than traditional heat recovery methods used by the competition. One of the latest solutions is the possibility to choose Enervent ventilation units with direct current eco fans, which gives the customer an even more energy efficient unit.
Korpikorpi Drying is a chain of companies capitalizing on drying services. Their mission is to return water damaged premises to use as fast as possible, conserving time and energy.
Optoelectronics Research Centre ORC is a subsidiary unit operating under the Council of Tampere University of Technology (TUT) since 1999. Optoelectronics is the alliance of optics and electronics, emphasizing the magnificent properties of light. Applications extend throughout our everyday lives, including compact disc players, fibre optic communication systems, bar code scanners, materials machining, radars, sensors, and mobile phones. It has played a seminal role in creating a laser manufacturing industry in Finland.
Recommendations regarding the consumption of liver dishes and liver products. New analyses show that the consumption of liver helps some children to utilize A-vitamin but on the other hand some children get a too high rate of retinoid. The risk concerns especially liver sauce and minced liver patties. Children younger than one year shall not eat liver products at all. Children under school age can eat liver sausage and liver paste, in all about 70g/week. They can consume liver casserole 300g/month but then they must avoid liver sauce and minced liver patties. My opinion. Ari Granlund mentions that the Finnish food culture is not a part of our industrially produced food.
- I just read about a project that shall promote Finnish food culture. All kind of organizations, authorities and the industry take part in this project. The prime minister and the government support it. But not a single person who is specialized in Finnish food culture and/or not one small entrepreneur in the meat branch is represented. The homely fare is part of the Finnish food culture. Karelian pastries, lamb dishes prepared of Finnish lamb, boiled mutton with dill sauce, boiled beef with horseradish sauce, pea soup, meat broth and Baltic herring casserole has been prepared since ancient times and are a good base when we develop the Finnish food culture. Chef Wotkins´s sets up a shop in Prisma, Helsinki East. Chef Wotkin´s has a very wide assortment; meat products, sausages and cold cuts. Behind the counter work the skilled personnel of Veijo Votkin.
- We will enlarge our assortment of game and aim to have a supply of meat and processed meat from moose, deer, boar and wildfowl. The consumption of ethical products is growing. The PR-company Edelman has done an inquiry in ten countries. According to the inquiry 68 % of the consumers will continue and 83% of the consumers are ready to change to healthy foodstuffs in spite of the depression. The Cooperative Bank also reports that the economic recession does not stop the growth of ethic consumption. In Finland the same trend is seen in the sales of Fair Trade. The volume of their sales grew by 62 % during January-September 2008 compared with the same period 2007. During 2008 the sales of Fair Trade rose to about 50 million euro. The recipe of the month: Asian soup based on minced beef.

20 The Finnish origin is granted
The most important principle for communication in the meat branch remains. We are allowed to use our own money as we please. Finfood will continue to use Food from Finland - the Swan Flag. The Swan flag is the best-known quality mark in Finland. It has been used for 15 years and the consumers recognize it. The mark tells the consumers that the product they are buying is produced of Finnish raw materials.. About 40 entrepreneurs in the meat branch use the Swan mark and the meat products are the biggest product group in the Swan- assortment.

22 Tekes is realizing a program called “Sapuska”
The project aims to improve competitiveness of small and medium sized companies. Tekes helps financing product development, to develop cooperation models for business operations and cooperation with the customers on the net. - The success of the Finnish food industry is based on specializing; product development based on research and business activities on the net, stresses Kari Venäläinen who is the boss for the Sapuska program. The program will go on until the year 2012 when the budget - 35 million euro - is spent.

24 The ideals of a meat man
The business idea at Roinila farm is simple. Produce meat, process it and sell it straight to the consumers. It sounds easy, in practice it is not. But the master at Roinila farm Heikki Manninen has succeeded. He is a celebrity in the Middle of Finland. He is a farmer, an entrepreneur in the meat branch and a talkative humorist. He took over the farm when he was 20 years of age. Then the farm was outdated and not profitable. Today the farm is a model farm. As many private entrepreneurs Heikki Manninen is especially energetic. When he took over the farm there were five milk cows. In the year 1972 the stock of milk cows was 18. In the year 1980 Heikki started to bring up slaughter pigs, 300 animals. In the year 1987 he bought 60 bull calves and 1991 he get rid of the milk cattle and bought instead beef cattle. In the year 2001 the production of slaughter pigs grew and the slaughter activities were intensified. The most important things for Heikki are profitability and quality. The piglets come to the farm from a pig farm for sows, live at Roinila 6 months and are looked after by well-known personnel. When they reach a live weight of 110 kg they are taken some ten meters to the slaughterhouse and slaughtered by the same well-known personnel.
- Thus we avoid stress meat. We don’t need to transport the animals, everything happens in a well-known environment and we slaughter all animals from a pen at the same time.
Monday is slaughter day. The meat is not stored but is sold in a couple of days. The sale takes place at the farm and at two markets in the vicinity. The farm owns 70 ha cultivated land were corn is cultivated. The production is not profitable.
- It would be cheaper and less laborious to buy corn but we need the arable land to spread the manure, tells Heikki Manninen who should prefer to transform the manure to thermal energy. But on the whole he is satisfied.
- The ladies in the city tell that only hearts and kidneys from Roinila farm are good enough for their pedigree cats. A better indicator does not exist, tells Manninen.

28 The Finnish Sauna Smoking Assosiation celbrated 50 years
Kauko Juhantalo, member of the parliament, mentioned in his speech that in the northern part of Central Finland live enterprising and broadminded people. The association was founded 1957 but already in the beginning of the 20^th century sauna smokers had begun their operations in their small saunas. The products were transported to Tampere where they were sold.

32 German efficiency
How can you control 800 product lines? The German meat company DREISTERN-Konserven GmbH & Co KG has 200 employees and the turnover is about 60 million euro/year. They handle 10 00 pig heads/day. They have 300 different products of which they produce 800 variations. To control such a big production should be impossible without automatic operations. Six years ago they started cooperation with CSB-System International. An uniform IT-system was created that makes the operations transparent and the pricing up to date. Technological solutions usually improve the efficiency and the product safety but need well-trained personnel.

35 The Foodstuff day 2009 at Helsinki Fair will be held 5.5.2009
The program focuses on how the financial depression and the climate changes influence the food chain.

36 In France they like meat from heifers
In France they cultivate grazing lands and maize, which are needed when producing beef. In France the consumers are selective and quality conscious. There are about 20 million head of cattle, half of which are beef cattle and bread at 12% of the French farms. The most usual breeds are charolais and limousine. The carcass weight is one of the highest in Europe. The weight of a young animal is about 400 kg. The French eat three times more beef than pork, the consumption is of beef is about 22 kg/person/year. The French eat more poultry than beef: chicken, broiler, goose, guinea hen and pigeon.

40 How are things at the halal slaughterhouse Diap Soliman?
Diap travels to Mäntsälä once a week to slaughter lamb and other cattle for the Muslims in Finland. The difference of the slaughter activities does not differ very much from ours. In halal slaughter they more carefully draw blood and other liquids from the carcass. Therefore the throat and the oesophagus are cut wide open.

42 Index of services

52 Eviras pages deal this time with the auto control and HACCP- directive for small entrepreneurs in the meat branch
In May 2008 Evira published “A special directive for small entrepreneurs in the meat branch about auto control and the HACCP”. You can find it on the address www.ltk.fi/haccp.

54 The column
The columnist Sakari Nupponen, editor at the evening paper Ilta-Sanomat, asks himself whether the economic recession will change our diet. If the price on cold cuts will rise by 10 % the effect will be the same as it you threw sand in the ski track. Most skiers change track. During the good years the cheapest cold cuts disappeared from the counters only to return during the depression during the 90-ties. What happens this time? How will the consumers act? The fast food chains have already appointed themselves winners.. The demand on ready-made food is declining and we prepare plain food in our own kitchens. But still we don’t know very much about 2009. According to a scenario we will dine out less, we will increase our clothing account and also will we avoid driving our cars. Not until after that will we examine our food purchases under a magnifying glass. Thereafter we begin to save when choose our culture supply and our holidays. We will busier follow offers and shop in bargain stores.
- The competition between the chains about the consumer’s coins will continue sharp as a razor. But probably, after all, we can in the future afford a slice of cold cuts on our bred, sums Sakar Nupponen up.

56 Facts on meat
Markus Yli-Hemminki from the Finnish Meat Research Institute writes about the production of meat; the primary production, the purchase and the transportation of slaughter animals, the slaughter and deboning, the ready packed meat, the meat processing and the convenience food industry, the logistics and the trade and the control and guidance of the meat chain.

Translation: Nina Hackman