Sector News

Finland’s biggest dairy company, Valio, confirmed on Friday that it will begin redundancy talks, as predicted earlier by the daily Karjalainen, based in the eastern town of Joensuu. Up to 320 positions may be eliminated in production, logistics and administration.

 

The firm now has a payroll of 4600. About 150 of them work in the south-central city of Tampere. There Valio is building a new processing line for specialised milk products, which to be up and running by year’s end.

 

Valio went through a wave of redundancies at its plants and main office last year. The company has suffered from a trade embargo imposed by Russia in retaliation for EU sanctions over Ukraine. In the past, Russia accounted for one fifth of Valio’s turnover. For instance, the company was one of the largest cheese exporters into Russia.

 

Domestically, Valio has lost market share in basic milk sales due to sharper competition at home.

 

Source: Yle