10 “Finnish” brands that are actually foreign-owned
Stand in any Finnish supermarket and it feels like home turf. Blue-and-white flags, familiar names, products your grandparents bought. But a surprising number of those “Finnish” brands belong to companies in Copenhagen, Oslo or Vevey.
That doesn’t make them bad. Many are still made in Finland, by Finnish workers, from Finnish ingredients. It just means the profits, and the big decisions, often travel somewhere else. If that matters to you, here are ten names worth knowing.
1. Jaffa, Lapin Kulta and Novelle: Hartwall → Denmark
Hartwall is about as Finnish as it gets: Jaffa at every children’s party, Lapin Kulta at every summer cottage. Since 2013, Hartwall has been owned by Royal Unibrew, a Danish brewing group. See Jaffa on Aitoarvio.
2. Koff and Karhu: Sinebrychoff → Denmark
Sinebrychoff was founded in Helsinki in 1819 and is one of the oldest breweries in the Nordics. Today it belongs to Carlsberg. So the two beers that have fought for Finnish bar taps for decades, Koff and Karhu, share the same Danish owner.
3. Pingviini and Aino ice cream → UK
The penguin on your summer ice cream works for Froneri, an ice cream group based in the UK. Froneri Finland runs the factory in Turenki.
4. Marli juices → Germany
Marli has been squeezing juice in Finland for generations. The brand now sits under Eckes-Granini, the German family company behind Granini.
5. Piltti baby food → Switzerland
Many Finnish parents grew up on Piltti themselves. The brand is run by Suomen Nestlé, part of Swiss Nestlé.
6. Risella rice → Spain
Risella is the rice brand most Finns know by name. It has been owned by Spain’s Ebro Foods since the mid-2000s.
7. Panda liquorice and chocolate → Norway
Panda from Vaajakoski is a Finnish classic, and the factory is still there. The owner is Norway’s Orkla, which also owns Estrella crisps and Abba fish products.
8. DNA → Norway
One of Finland’s three big mobile operators is Norwegian-owned. Telenor bought DNA in 2019.
9. Telia → Sweden
Telia grew out of Sonera, the old Finnish state telecom. Today it is part of Telia Company, headquartered in Sweden.
10. Milbona, Kanamestari and other Lidl brands → Germany
Some supermarket names sound Finnish but are a shop’s own label. Kanamestari chicken and Milbona dairy are Lidl brands. Lidl belongs to the German Schwarz Group.
Foreign-owned, but still made in Finland
Here’s the part that often gets lost in this debate. Ownership and production are two different things.
Panda is still cooked in Vaajakoski. Pingviini ice cream comes out of Turenki. Koff is brewed by Sinebrychoff in Kerava, and Hartwall brews in Lahti. Those factories employ Finnish people, buy Finnish raw materials and pay taxes here.
What changes with a foreign owner is mostly where the profit ends up and where the big decisions are made. A Danish or Norwegian head office decides whether a Finnish factory gets new investment or gets closed. Usually nothing changes for years. Sometimes a lot does.
How to spot Finnish products in the shop
If you want to buy Finnish, two symbols on the package help. Neither tells you who owns the brand. They tell you where and how the product was made.
- Hyvää Suomesta (the blue-and-white swan flag): used on food. It means the product is made in Finland and its main ingredients are Finnish.
- Avainlippu (the Key Flag): used on all kinds of products. It means the product is made in Finland by a company that applied for the right to use it.
So a foreign-owned brand can carry the swan flag, and a Finnish-owned brand can sell imported products. To get the full picture, you need both: the label on the pack and the owner behind the brand.
How we check who owns a brand
For every brand on Aitoarvio we look up the company behind it, then that company’s owner. We use the company’s own website and annual report, public company registers and reliable news coverage of sales and mergers.
Companies change hands all the time. If you know a brand’s owner has changed, tell us and we’ll update the page.
Why does ownership matter?
For some people it doesn’t. Quality, price and taste come first. For others it’s about where the money goes, or about supporting Finnish companies in tough years.
There’s no right answer, but you can only choose if you know. That’s the reason every brand page on Aitoarvio shows a Finnish-owned or Foreign-owned label next to the reviews.
Brands that are still Finnish-owned
To be fair, plenty of big names remain in Finnish hands: Valio (a cooperative owned by dairy farmers), Fazer and Paulig (both family-owned), Atria and HK (listed in Helsinki), and the shops’ own brands Pirkka (Kesko) and Kotimaista (S Group).
FAQ
Are foreign-owned brands still made in Finland? Often, yes. Panda is still made in Vaajakoski and Pingviini in Turenki. Ownership and production place are two different things.
How can I check who owns a brand? Search for it on Aitoarvio. Each brand page lists the company and its owner, and labels it Finnish-owned or Foreign-owned.
Is Fazer Finnish-owned? Yes. Fazer is still owned by the Fazer family, more than 130 years after Karl Fazer opened his café in Helsinki.
Is Valio foreign-owned? No. Valio is owned by Finnish dairy cooperatives, which in turn are owned by the farmers who produce the milk.
Does the swan flag mean the company is Finnish? No. The Hyvää Suomesta swan flag is about where the food is made and where its ingredients come from, not about who owns the brand.
Did we miss a brand? Tell us through the contact page, and we’ll check it and add it.
Ownership is checked at the time of writing (November 2026). Companies are bought and sold, so tell us if something has changed.