Atria Finland and Heinon Tukku - practical cooperation

Recently, Atria has reported on success in the Food Service segment, at least in terms of net sales. Now it seems that one reason for this success is revealed in company's Success Stories column.  According to it, a year ago, collaboration with a wholesaler Heinon Tukku was taken to a new level, from a customer to a partner.

 

“The key idea of the partnership agreement is that Atria will ensure the flexibility of the deliveries made by Heinon Tukku and the availability of goods” and “Heinon Tukku, in turn, will help Atria to reach restaurant-sector customers in greater Helsinki.”

Cooperation has expanded this autumn. The column tells, that the companies started a new type of service counter for the meat sector: 

“Heinon Tukku has previously provided whole fillets and carcass parts, but now we can also cut meat into desired pieces and steaks of a specific weight.”

What does it mean? Overall, it means that the biggest rival HKScan is challenged in its home ground.  Without a doubt, this simple step may have brought a significant increase in Atria Foodservice sales. Heinon Tukku is a major wholesaler, sales of more than EUR 200 million and its range covers all from food to tableware.  Pre-cut meat for its part further facilitates the everyday life of a pro kitchen.  All in one cargo.

But what about the other half of the agreement?  How does Atria ”ensure the flexibility of the deliveries made by Heinon Tukku”?  And what might it mean?  Well, I don’t know, but this cooperation surely will increase Atria's net sales and may be also profitable in the near future.  Especially demand for most valuable parts of the carcass will hopefully increase.  Moreover, one could think that for instance Ridderheims’ products could be included in the range of Heinon Tukku as well.

We will look at Atria again later but on Friday, January 2^nd we are going to look at HKScan’s businesses.  Slow food is slow food but fast food is fast food.

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A few remarks about HKScan’s poultry business

But at first shortly about meat export.  In a recent issue of Kauppapolitiikka, it’s Trade Policy, published by the ministry concerned, there is, under the title “Blue and white food tours” (in Finnish), an interesting article about HKScan and the main message is that reputation of cleanness and safeness boosts Finnish food export.  As an example of Finnish quality, Hanny Kottonen, CEO HKscan, mentions that in Japan, Finnish pork is served raw in local sushi.  This is something that even Sweden has failed to do, Kottonen notes.  By-products, those parts of carcass, which do not sell in Finland, are perhaps another key to success. Still one key, mentioned by Kottonen, is that HKScan should also export - in addition to raw meat - also consumer products with strong brands.  Now we can only hope that the new Flodins brand does the job. However, the article tells, export is not easy business, even close neighbors, like Russia and Norway, have proven to be challenging.  

And now shortly about poultry. Of all Group’s units only HKScan Denmark, is unprofitable.  For reason or another, this is now explicitly stated in a Danish newspaper. Chicken do not sell and prices are low.  Group’s problem child is the term used. It just came into my mind that Rose Poultry could be for sale.  After the fire, the factory has of course been renovated and it might interest possible buyers.  The Group after all, has invested heavily on poultry in Estonia and plans to invest in Finland, as already noted on this blog earlier. One additional fact is that Denmark is more vulnerable to avian influenza. Perhaps the group does not even think of selling Rose Poultry but I think that there’s some idea to go through this case more closely in the near future. 

Talking about chicken, the valuable Finnish brand ”Kariniemen”, is in fact not that valuable.  On the Finnish list of most prestigious brands, it holds rank number 121 of all 1043 examined brands.  Considering that “Kariniemen” is an old brand and its awareness is high, ranking outside top 100 is terribly bad.

Now Kariniemen is campaigning ethical farming.  Ordinary people, picked by the company, were allowed to videotape freely in a henhouse and make questions freely, company’s Youtube Channel tells.  Well, think about this: they were free to ask anything they wanted.  Superb! Okay, I don’t think that this kind of theatre has any positive impact.  Factory farming is factory farming and that’s it.  Personally I would have liked to see chicken catcher in operation and I would have liked to ask about tetracycline use.

We will discuss HKScan later but on Friday, December 19^th, we are going to look at Atria’s businesses. Chicken rocks!

This is Artoparto and here is my Disclaimer.  Please read it.

Disclaimer:  All content provided on this site is for entertainment purposes only.  This site does not provide any investment advice and content on this site should not be construed as recommendation to buy or sell any financial instruments.  Please consult a qualified financial adviser before making any financial decision.  I make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity, of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site.  I will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from displaying or using any content provided on this site.  I am not responsible for users' comments.  I reserve the right to update or delete any content on this site for any reason.

A small overview of Atria’s products

Interim reports and profit warnings come and go and certainly products are not forever. Anyway, let’s look quickly at new products from Atria Finland and Atria Scandinavia.

In Finland, a special Autumn Catalogue (in Finnish), Atria Food Service 2014, intended for professional kitchens, tells that Atria is or at least wants to be a full-service food company.  That’s of course just what HoReCa wants to hear, they want to have only a few suppliers to make logistics easier for them.  And Atria has resources to be that kind of a full scale supplier to any institutional kitchen or any top restaurant.  In any case, Atria Finland does not want to focus solely on meat.

So, just looking at the new products section of the catalogue, one can find that one of this autumn’s novelties is fish.  Yes, fish.  Frozen whitefish croquettes and pike loaf.  Prepare by heating.  That’s how it goes.  Besides smooth logistics, pro kitchens also want that someone else makes their food.  

Now let’s look at the other side of the bay, even up to Gothenburg where Atria Scandinavia won seven gold medals this October in a Swedish meat product contest.  Here are Atria highlights but let’s look at the official results a little closer. 

There were 16 competition categories and in each of them were chosen one Swedish Champion product and several gold, silver and bronze medal products.

Unfortunately Atria didn’t win any champion titles.  Moreover, many Atria’s products had to settle for silver or bronze medal.

In the honored ”Falukorv” category, Lithells product won only bronze, defeated by around 20 products which won gold or silver, plus of course the Champion, which incidentally is a product of HKScan,  Atria’s main rival.  As a side note one can state that HKScan’s Rapeseed Pork products did not perform well, the only exception being Rapeseed Pork Christmas Ham, which won the category’s championship.

Back to Atria’s products.  In cooked ham category Lönneberga got gold medal but all Lithells’ products fell far short of top rankings.  In smoked ham category one of Lönneberga’s products got gold but as many as six of the brand’s products got only bronze.  One may conclude that Atria’s precious brand performed quite badly.

In the barbecue sausage category and in the wiener category Lithells products got medals in all colors. Sibylla’s skinless sausage got gold in its category. In smoked cold cut category Onsala’s product had to settle for bronze. One may say that in these important sausage categories Atria’s success was only moderate. However, the biggest disappointment is the fact that in the equally important pâté category both Arboga and Pastejköket got only silver. More than ten pâté products were ranked higher.  Luckily Atria’s small Lindbergs brand was one of those and won a gold medal.

We will look at Atria again later but on Friday, December 5th, we are going to look at HKScan’s businesses. This is Doc Sausage.

This is Artoparto and here is my Disclaimer.  Please read it.

Disclaimer:  All content provided on this site is for entertainment purposes only.  This site does not provide any investment advice and content on this site should not be construed as recommendation to buy or sell any financial instruments.  Please consult a qualified financial adviser before making any financial decision.  I make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity, of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site.  I will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from displaying or using any content provided on this site.  I am not responsible for users' comments.  I reserve the right to update or delete any content on this site for any reason.