The Story of Vaissi

THE STORY OF VAISSI IS A STORY OF CABBAGE AND INNOVATION

Coincidences, creativeness, courage and care for others. These are the recurrent themes of the Story of Vaissi.

In 1829, when Pietari Tuomaanpoika bought a spare plot of land from the Crown for his son, Fabian, in all likelihood he had no idea that six generations later, it would be the home of the largest cabbage roll factory in the Nordic Countries.

We have rolled cabbage rolls since 2001, i.e. for more than 15 years now. In autumn 2017, we started selling our own branded cabbage rolls.

The Vaissi principle has always been: prepare food for the others as you would prepare it for yourself. For us, the factory where our products are made is like a giant kitchen, where we just happen to cook food in great portions.

Each year, we roll 12 million cabbage rolls by hand – and that’s a lot. But none of them would be made without a genuine, enthusiastic Vaissi employee who loves this job.

When enjoying Vaissi’s cabbage rolls, you know that they have been carefully made from Finnish ingredients, by Lake Vaissi in Haapamäki, Central Finland.

Enjoy your meal!

Maria Hanho, Managing Director, and 86 other members of the Vaissi family

TASTY CABBAGE

Our vision is to make the tastiest cabbage rolls in Finland. In 2016, we made about 1.2 million kilos or 12,000,000 cabbage rolls, and our turnover was EUR 6.3 million. To produce such volumes, we need a number of hard-working food industry experts. During the high and the low seasons, we employ about 80 and 40 persons, respectively.

The story of Vaissi Oy – Grown from the cabbage patch

Vaissi Oy is a family-owned food business located in Central Finland. Our story is exceptional in many respects, and not least because, in an industry traditionally dominated by men, our Managing Director is a young woman, Maria Vaissi.

Vaissi Oy would probably not exist today if an OSH inspector had not visited the Vaissi farm in 1974. Back then, Vaissi was a manufacturer of pre-cooked cabbage leaves. The inspector was not happy with the machine with which cabbage stems were drilled off the leaves to be cooked. Jaakko Vaissi, the owner of the hapless machine, began to develop a cabbage-cooking device that would meet the inspector’s requirements. Today, Jaakko’s cabbage cooker is still in operation.

IT ALL BEGAN WITH CABBAGE FARMING

Actually, the story of Vaissi begins much earlier, in the early 1940s, when Ilmari Vaissi began farming cabbage on the Vaissi farm. After the Winter War, people wanted vegetables. The price of cabbage, however, tended to fluctuate and was lowest in the autumn, when there was oversupply of the green stuff. In 1972, the first cabbage storage was built, enabling Vaissi to sell cabbage during the winter, when the price was better. Back then, the Vaissis farmed cabbage on about 20 hectares. Farming was discontinued in 1987, and since then, all cabbage for the Vaissi cabbage roll factory and for the food industry has been bought from Finnish contract farmers. Today, the Vaissi farm has only a small (0.5 ha) cabbage patch for testing purposes.

Ilmari’s son Jaakko and his wife Saara ran the Vaissi farm from 1982 to 2008. The Vaissi farm has approximately 110 hectares of arable land and 272 hectares of forests. Over the years, there have been chickens, cows, pigs and vegetable farming. Today, the Vaissi farm is owned by Juho Vaissi, son of Saara and Jaakko.

THE STORY OF VAISSI OY – GROWN FROM THE CABBAGE PATCH

FROM PRE-COOKED CABBAGE TO CABBAGE ROLLS

The production of pre-cooked cabbage began in 1972, and in 2001, the cabbage roll factory was founded. In 2004, the cabbage roll business was separated from the rest of the Vaissi farm.

Every year, the Vaissi factory makes around 12 million cabbage rolls for food industry customers that market them to Finnish and Swedish consumers. The cabbage rolls are made by customer’s own recipes and under their brands

THE FUTURE LOOKS YOUNG

In 2008, the new generation of Vaissis took the reins. Jaakko and Saara are still members of the Board, but the current principal owner is their daughter Maria Vaissi. She became the Managing Director in 2011, when she was just 28.

Today, Vaissi Oy is a major employer in the food industry in Central Finland. It has around 40 year-round employees and 20 more during the high season from August to March. The quality of the products is monitored carefully.

In the future, we are planning to boost our capacity to make different convenience foods and invest in exports.

Vaissi Oy is the largest cabbage roll manufacturer in Finland. Now we would love to introduce this tasty and easy food to consumers in other countries.

THE STORY OF VAISSI