Porokylän Leipomo Oy (Porokylä Bakery) is a Finnish family business that was founded in 1983. The company specialises in handmade baked goods with a priority on great taste, consistent quality and good service. Hannah Barnett spoke to CEO Erik Kärki and Communications & Sustainability Manager Laura Hyvärinen to learn more.
IN2023, Porokylä Bakery celebrated 40 years of operation by producing a commemorative book, dedicated to the history and significant milestones of the company. This sort of pride in its work and history is one of the things that makes the Finnish bakery stand out.
“The company has consistently kept growing over four decades, so we know we have done something right,” said Erik Kärki, CEO: “and we have a very healthy corporate culture. We are always looking for different kinds of expertise and incorporating it into our process. This enables us to make the very best rye bread, gluten-free bakery products and other baked goods.”
The company operates three production sites, as well as two in-store bakeries in the cities of Nurmes and Lieksa, all in eastern Finland. The former specialises in the company’s signature traditional rye breads, Karelian pasties, loaves and sweet pastry. The bakery in Lieksa is known for its popular gluten-free products made with high-quality ingredients.
The bakery supplies large retail chains across Finland and is FSSC 22000 certified for its food safety management system. In 2023, the company had a turnover of €25 million, with rye bread making up about 45% of revenue and the gluten-free products approximately 30%. Porokylä Bakery employs 180 people.
Baking sustainably
In the summer of 2023, Porokylä Bakery opened a new factory that will allow the company to produce higher volumes of rye bread in a more sustainable setting.
As Communications & Sustainability Manager Laura Hyvärinen pointed out, even the upgrade itself was carried out in a sustainable manner: “The machinery that we have invested in is not all brand new; we have rebuilt parts, and the factory building was already there, but now it’s been transformed into a bakery. So, the refurbishment had a sustainable aspect because everything was not made new.”
To source its energy, the company has also invested in a new biogas plant located nearby the new site, which is due to open in spring 2024. This means that oil ovens will switch to biogas, powered by the bakery’s own food waste. The other ovens already run on wind power.
“Transforming our energy usage is something we’re very proud of,” said Ms
Hyvärinen, “and at the moment, all the electricity we are using is from wind. We intend to stay with this renewable source, while planning to eliminate fossil fuels entirely.
The company also aims to decrease food waste in other ways and has already been fairly successful with this venture. The average percentage of food waste in the Finnish food sector is 10 to 15%, but Porokylä Bakery has cut it down to 4% – and is still striving to improve on that, with some production lines already down to 2%.
“A big portion we are donating to charity, too,” Ms Hyvärinen added, “we have just found a transportation partner that will transport the food waste to the Helsinki area for that purpose. Some is also donated as animal food, where possible.”
Though to a certain extent the bakery has been striving to improve its environmental footprint and reduce waste for years, Ms Hyvärinen is the first Sustainability Manager Porokylä Bakery has had. The appointment is symptomatic of a general shift in attitude towards sustainability and the needs of the future.
Always evolving
Porokylä Bakery – though best known for its traditional rye bread – is aware that to continue to grow, a business needs to evolve, or it will stagnate.
“Long ago, we had one baker with a lot of gluten-free baking experience, as she had been making them for her daughter for years,” Mr Kärki explained. “We thought it was something we could try: maybe there was a place in the market for this kind of product; and there was.”
Indeed, the development of the glutenfree range has allowed the skills and experience of Porokylä Bakery’s dedicated bakers to really come to the fore.
“There can be a conception of glutenfree products as not being very flavoursome and lacking a good texture,” Ms Hyvärinen added, “but our bakers have managed to make very tasty products. We do both sourdough breads and sweet baked goods in gluten-free form now.”
Porokylä Bakery also offers services for both retail and food industry companies in private label manufacturing, and is now looking into international business. “We have been collaborating with the biggest Finnish players for years and now we are also looking abroad,” said Ms Hyvärinen.
Customer favourite
Another significant part of the company’s success is thanks to its strong supply chain and good relationships with its partners.
“We have one main partner, that does 60 or 70 per cent of the logistics and we have worked with them for two decades; so I think that this is a sign of how well we work together,” Mr Kärki said.
Porokylän Leipomo also works closely with S Group, a large Finnish co-operative supermarket chain. “They are very important to us, and as they have been growing in recent years, we have managed to grow alongside them,” Ms Hyvärinen said.
