Valio

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Valio is one of the biggest companies in Finland and mostly produces dairy products such as ice cream, butter, yoghurt and milk. Valio is Finland's biggest foodcompany and produces over 80% of Finland's milk. Valio is finnish and in english it means roughly "of finest quality".

[edit] History

Valio was founded in 1905 by 17 shared dairys. The name of Valio was by that time "Voivienti-osuusliike Valio r.l". Their activity started in Hanko, and the most important buyer was England.

Valio's activities expanded from butter to other dairy products in 1909, and by 1920's Valio's marketing in Finland was bigger than abroad. Nowadays 1300 products belong to Valio's product range.

Artturi Ilmari Virtanen is Finland's only person who received the Nobel of Chemistry was an employee in Valio. The prize was given for benefit which Virtanen's workteam brought with AIV-fodder.

Valio sold it's ice cream activity to overseas company Nestlé in 2004. Nestlé also got the right to use the "Valiojäätelö" name for a long time.

In 2005 the Valion Jäätelöbaari was opened in Kampin Keskus. The Ice cream bar in Kampin Keskus (Kamppi's shoppingcentre) was designed by Paula Suhonen.