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.

HKScan - growth-seeking but shrinking company

HKScan shrinks but the strategy for profitable growth is kept alive.  Currently it means plans of investing in poultry product plant in Finland and some kind of a “Flodins factory” in Rakvere, Estonia.  It is noteworthy, that the Group seems to be investing in poultry.  In Estonia, a new poultry facility was just opened and of course, there is already a large unit in Denmark, which has not been very successful lately.  It is true, that consumption of chicken meat is rising constantly but anyway plans to invest quite heavily in poultry in Finland makes me think if there will be overcapacity.

There are many so funny writings in the net including those of mine, especially the posting on this blog May, 23.  At that time I was so excited to announce the fact that in autumn and thereafter HKScan Finland’s rapeseed products will be GMO free.  I wrote for instance: “We’ll see, but GMO free product group might well be a game changer in Finland.” And perhaps or even likely HKScan would succeed in the competition and win it.  That’s what I thought in May.  Currently, I would be surprised, if HKScan wins any competition anywhere.  Looks like the term ‘win’ is not included in the Group’s playbook.

Hannu Kottonen, CEO HKScan, has always found lot of reasons for bad results:  expensive feed, private labels, low demand, aging population, recession, surplus of meat and also lack of meat, for instance.  The latest Q3 report gives one reason more.  Namely the company tells about decreasing retail sales volumes in Finland and this time one reason is that food wastage among consumers remained low.  That’s straight out of Dilbert, the comic strip.

We will discuss HKScan later but on Friday, November 21^st, we are going to look at Atria’s businesses.  But now, let’s look at some failures in Russia.

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.

Swedish wonders - Ridderheims and Sibylla

Selling of Fallbygdens business is fine and okay, cheeses really do not belong to meat processing company’s repertoire.  Here are the arguments given by Atria.

”Atria focuses on its core business in Sweden and therefore Atria Sverige AB has made an agreement to sell the Falbygdens cheese business to Arla Foods AB.”

However by the same grounds, Ridderheims should be sold as well. What has Atria to do with Italian olives?  They for example are contained in the company’s product range.  In addition, I ponder if Ridderheims truly is an appealing brand or even a well-known brand.  Namely the company has been campaigning to raise its brand awareness.  The company’s attention-grabbing advertising campaign in September was targeted for busy people making their career.  Really, one must conclude that Ridderheims is not a power brand.  Not even in Sweden.

Ridderheims’ products, to a large extent, are imported but at the same time the company is geared towards building export and currently Norway is the biggest market.  Finns have not yet adopted its products and export to Russia is currently not an option.  How could Ridderheims take foothold anywhere abroad? Why should anyone want his or her Prosciutto di Parma not to come straight from Italy but for instance via Gothenburg, with only Ridderheims’ logo added?  Products something like this.

Perhaps Ridderheims is not the kind of crown jewel that one could have though. Maybe Atria will sell Ridderheims as soon as someone wants to buy it.

What about the other Swedish wonder, Sibylla, and especially its progress in Finland?  Web pages tell that the number of point of sales is promising, about 300.

But what is the target? It is 400 sales outlets and reaching the top five the very near future.  It means that after this target is reached there will still be too many larger chains, namely a couple of chains which everyone knows, and a couple of chains, of which no one has ever heard of. Okay, their final target is top three.  That would be fine.

Perhaps Sibylla’s outlets are too small. Maybe fast food is associated also with social needs and some special needs such as desire to be seen. Or is it the case that fast food de facto is only for teens and families with children.  If so, Sibylla’s mini-outlets will never prosper.

We will look at Atria again later but on Friday, November 7th, we are going to look at HKScan’s businesses. Finno-Ugric peoples concisely.

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.