Apetit’s market position
Apetit is the largest Finnish operator in Finland, its principal market area, and the leading developer of a unique vegetable-based value chain from field to table in its product groups.
Frozen foods product group
Market
Frozen vegetables and ready meals are sold to retailers, the food service sector, the food industry and exports.
The grocery trade is highly concentrated in Finland. The largest players are the S Group, the K Group and Lidl. The value of the grocery trade in Finland is approximately EUR 18.6 billion. In the retail segment, the frozen foods category* (excluding ice cream products) grew in 2021 in Finland by 6 per cent when compared to 2020.
As a whole, the proportion of the frozen foods groups produced by Apetit of total grocery sales is not recorded. In Apetit’s management’s estimate, the annual growth in sales of frozen vegetables and frozen ready meals is faster than that of the grocery trade in general.
In the professional food service sector, sales are distributed more evenly, both directly to restaurant chains and through various public service clusters and food service wholesalers. Food Service wholesale** increased by 5.9 per cent in January–December 2021 but was 12.7 per cent below the level of the pre-pandemic year 2019.
The sales performance of the professional food service sector is affected by changes in demand in staff restaurants, fast-food restaurants, general restaurants and service station restaurants, and in public services such as schools and health care.
Market share
Apetit is the market leader in frozen vegetables and frozen ready meals in Finland.
Competitive position
Apetit’s main competitors in the frozen foods group are Findus, Orkla and retailers’ private labels.
Competitive advantages:
- Unique raw material procurement model based on contract growing
- Strong market position and a respected brand
- Product development and production know-how
- Cultivation development based on a sustainable food chain
- High domestic content
Vegetable oils
Market
The main customer segments for vegetable oils in Finland are the food industry, the professional food service sector and the grocery trade.
The structure and trends of the grocery trade and the professional food service sector are similar to those of the frozen foods group (see above).
Almost all of Finland’s leading food industry companies use Apetit’s vegetable oils as raw materials in their products.
Market share
Apetit is the market leader in vegetable oils in the food industry and the professional food service sector and a significant operator in the grocery trade.
Its strongest market position is with Finnish food industry customers who appreciate domestic vegetable oil raw materials.
Competitive position
The biggest operators in the vegetable oils market are Apetit, Scanola Baltic, which is a part of the Danish Agro group, other foreign companies that import oils into different customer channels, and Bunge in retail products.
In Finland, Apetit controls an overwhelming share of domestic vegetable oil as the only industrial-scale vegetable oil refiner in the country.
Competitive advantages:
- Economies of scale in production and procurement
- Very high production efficiency and security of supply
- High-quality products for a wide customer base
- Environmentally friendly and chemical-free production process
- High domestic content
Oilseed-based feed raw materials (rapeseed expellers)
Market
The main customer segment for oilseed raw materials is the feed industry in Finland and the other Nordic countries.
Market share
Apetit is Finland’s only industrial-scale operator and its share of the sales of oilseed-based feed components is significant in Finland.
Competitive position
The largest operators in the market for vegetable-based raw materials for feeds are Apetit and the oil milling plants of other operators in the Baltic countries, Germany and Scandinavia.
Competitive advantages:
- No salmonella
- Alternative as soy replacement
