Full case study report: Järvifisu - Finland

Summary

Järvifisu (in English: Lake Fish) is a general partnership enterprise with two owners. The core business is fishery and raw material production. The enterprise was founded in 2010 as a response to the realized deficiency of good quality fresh lake fish in a region, where there are abundant lakes with clean waters and with no aquaculture. The customers are municipalities, local retail stores and restaurants in the region. The values that differentiate the Järvifisu fish from that of other suppliers in the market are the quality, especially the freshness and the local origin of the products. The competitiveness of the business is based on the high demand for fresh lake fish and on the high quality of the Järvifisu products. There is no organic certification for lake fish. The initial product range of Järvifisu was only fillets of a couple lake fish species. Gradually the choice has been expanded to new fish specii and, in addition to fillets, also scaled and gutted fish are sold. Today the major item is raw pike mass produced mainly for the municipal customers. Various fish mass products have been kept in the repertoire, although processed fish products are not the main interest. Järvifisu is a good example of co-operation between a public actor – the municipality - and a local small enterprise. It illustrates the significance of the public customership in providing a protected space for the small enterprises to develop their activity and to improve their competitive position when trying to get foothold on the highly concentrated Finnish food markets. It is also an example of the difficulties the small enterprises have in establishing customership with the market leaders.