Safe and Delicious Finnish Food
Clean nature, cool climate and investments made in plant and animal health as well as animal welfare together with efficient from-field-to-fork food control system guarantee the safest and most delicious food from Finland.
Finland is the northernmost country in the European Union. Our Arctic position ensures exceptional conditions for producing safe and high quality food. The long and cold winters are followed by green summers when it never gets dark.
Finland is a small country renowned for the vast forests, clean air and thousands of lakes. Our abundant fresh water resources and forests offer high quality raw materials for food production, such as fish and berries. Finland has the world’s largest certified organic wild collection area, which accounts for 40% of Finland’s land area.
Reliable food production chain from field to fork
The high level of food safety and traceability as well as innovative and healthy products are key strengths in the Finnish food production. Effective control covers the whole chain: primary production, establishments, wholesalers and retailers. Clean, potable water is used in all of the processing stages.
Hygiene competence in Finland is probably in a class of its own. All food sector employees are obligated to demonstrate their competence in food hygiene by proficiency testing. We have developed a ‘hygiene passport’ as a proof of this competence. So far more than 1,100,000 hygiene passports (covering about 20% of the total population!) have been issued.
Finland’s food production chain promotes One Health
The One Health concept recognizes that the health of humans is connected to the health of animals and the environment. Year after year, Finland has been among the countries with the lowest residues of pesticides and herbicides in food. This is a result of our sound plant health status, good production methods, harsh climate and clean arable land.
The strict control programmes, along with excellent animal husbandry practices allow Finland to use very small amounts of antibiotics in livestock. Also the use of growth promotion is prohibited. In fact, the responsible veterinary use of antibiotics has continued since the 1970s. This preserves the valuable antibiotics for human health care.
Finnish animals are healthy and happy
Finland values the welfare of livestock very highly. For instance, beaks are not trimmed from chicks and tails are not cut in piglets, which is rare in today’s high-intensity animal husbandry.
Finland has not suffered outbreaks in severe animal diseases such as foot and mouth disease in decades. We have a zero-tolerance policy for Salmonella in food producing animals and rigorous control programmes for other animal diseases. Our exceptional animal health status is due to a long history of preventive health care that is built on collaboration and trust between the farmers, the authorities and the industry.
Key strengths of Finnish food can be found at the Food facts website