Valio

Dairy manufacturer

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Finnish. (June 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 222 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Finnish Wikipedia article at [[:fi:Valio]]; see its history for attribution.
You should also add the template {{Translated|fi|Valio}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Valio Ltd

Company type	Limited company
Industry	Dairy
Founded	1905 (1905)
Headquarters	Helsinki, Finland
Key people	Annikka Hurme (CEO)
Revenue	EUR 2 billion
Number of employees	4,600
Website	www.valio.com

Valio Ltd (Finnish: Valio Oy) is a Finnish manufacturer of dairy products and one of the largest companies in Finland. Valio's products include cheese, powdered ingredients, butter, yogurt and milk. It is Finland's largest milk processor, producing 85% of the country's milk.

Valio's net turnover in 2012 was 2 billion euros. Valio is the market leader in key dairy product categories in Finland and a pioneer as the developer of functional foods.^{[citation needed]} Valio is owned by 18 dairy cooperatives which have about 7,900 milk farmers as members. Valio's product range currently consists of about 1,000 products. Valio is Finland’s biggest food exporter and sells products to nearly 60 countries.^[1] In 2015 Valio’s share of Finland’s dairy product exports was around 97%, and that of Finland’s food exports around 29%.^[1]

Valio has 15 production facilities in Finland, two in Estonia and a plant for producing processed cheese and a logistics centre in Moscow, Russia. Valio subsidiaries operate in Russia, Sweden, the Baltic countries, United States and China. International operations account for one third of Valio net turnover.

History

Valio was founded in 1905 by 17 co-operative dairies. The original name of the company was Voivienti-osuusliike Valio r.l, or 'Butter Export Cooperative Valio'. The company was originally based in Hanko and the most important market was England.

Valio's activities expanded from butter to other dairy products in 1909, and by the 1920s Valio's marketing in Finland was bigger than abroad. In 1933, Valio started production of Koskenlaskija Finnish brand of processed cheese in Helsinki.^[2]

Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was an employee of Valio. The prize was given "for his research and inventions in agricultural and nutrition chemistry, especially for his fodder preservation method". Virtanen's work preserved nutrients in hay, which lead cows to produce more nutritious milk.^[3]

In 2001, Valio launched a lactose-free milk drink which is not sweet like HYLA milk but has the fresh taste of ordinary milk. Valio patented the chromatographic separation method to remove lactose. Valio also markets these products in Sweden, Estonia, and the United States, where the company says ultrafiltration is used.^[4]

In Belgium the products were present under the Valio brand until 2013, but the name changed after Valio sold their Belgian subsidiary in 2012. The brand is now called Dilea ^[5] and the drink is still made using the Valio process.

Valio sold its ice cream activity to overseas company Nestlé in 2004. Nestlé also received the right to use the Valiojäätelö name for 10 years, ending in 2014.^[6] It was soon transferred into the Nestle/R&R Ice Cream joint venture Froneri Finland.^[7]

In 2005, Valion Jäätelöbaari (Valio Ice Cream Bar), designed by Paola Suhonen, was opened in Kamppi Center, Helsinki.

In 2007, Valio invested approx. €60 million in a factory near Moscow for the packaging of cheese and butter for the Russian market as well as for logistics operations from Moscow up to the Pacific Ocean. The products were mostly imported from the mother company in Finland. The production capacity of the plant was 8,000 Mt per year with 400 employees and could be expanded up to 20,000 Mt. The turnover of Valio in Russia was €283 million in 2010, making it the biggest Finnish consumer business on the Russian market after Nokia. After Russia imposed sanctions on the EU, butter made by Valio appeared in supermarkets in the USA under the FINLANDIA brand.^{[citation needed]}

References

^ ^a ^b "Valio Group key figures". Valio.fi. Archived from the original on 2017-09-25. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
^ Sulatejuuston historiaa 1933–1996, Roger Saarikangas 1997
^ "Artturi Virtanen - Facts". www.nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2017-07-31.
^ "Lactose Free Technology: Real Goodness". Archived from the original on 2009-11-22. Retrieved 2009-11-22.
^ "Dilea Zero Lactose". Archived from the original on 2015-05-18. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
^ "Valiojäätelön logoon ei enää juuri törmää | Kauppalehti.fi". www.kauppalehti.fi. Archived from the original on 2014-09-10.
^ "Pallottelu Pingviini-jäätelöllä jatkuu – 35 työpaikkaa vaarassa Turengin-tehtaalla". 5 September 2017.