When Arvo Kokkonen started importing shrimp to Finland, few had tasted them before.
When buying shrimp, Finns mostly choose peeled frozen shrimp for their baskets. Netta Metsäaho
Pizza and shrimp. It’s a combination that impressed Finns in the 1970s. Pizza was the first food in which Finns ate shrimp.
The fact that prawns came to Finnish dining tables in the 1970s is thanks to a pioneer in the field Arvo Kokko.
Seafood house Arvo Kokkonen Oy was founded in 1979 and the first product sold was shrimps. In his previous workplace, Kokkonen noticed that shrimp could be a good import product, as the demand for them increased in pizzerias.
In the beginning, Kokkonen delivered shrimps in cooperation with Pizzakeisari Rabbe Grönblom with the then Pizzeria Nr1 chain. Grönblom is known, among other things, as the founder of the Kotipizza chain.
From pizzerias, Arvo Kokkonen’s customer base expanded to restaurants and wholesalers.
In the early days of the company, shrimps were still a foreign product to Finns, but their recognition was increased by numerous tasting events held in stores.
Arvo and Jari Kokkonen have worked together for decades. Now the family business has been sold to the world. Netta Metsäaho
– They didn’t know how to use them back then. Someone had eaten on the ship, but for most of them shrimp was still a foreign ingredient. Many people said at the store’s tasting that they wouldn’t put such worms in their mouths, says Arvo Kokkonen at an event organized by the Norwegian Seafood Council.
Kokkonen recalls that people also asked his wife, who did the tastings, for recipes, because there were none anywhere.
– We developed and invented the recipes ourselves. Among other things, our own version of shrimp pile and shrimp cocktail was born in our kitchen.
Nowadays, the situation is already different. According to a recent survey commissioned by the Norwegian Seafood Council, every third Finn eats shrimp at least once a month.
At first, Kokkonen went to pick up shrimp from Norway himself, but as the orders increased, he bought a transport service. But ingenuity was required from the entrepreneur. Pizzerias didn’t have space to store shrimp, so Kokkonen bought used freezer chests and took one to every pizzeria. Every few weeks, the freezer was filled with new shrimp.
In the 1980s, Kokkonen already ordered truckloads of peeled shrimp from Norway.
– From the beginning, I believed in the product and its sales. Gradually, we started bringing other shellfish to Finland, and in the 90s, for example, fresh mussels and lobsters from Sweden.
In Finland, cold water shrimps are eaten the most. Tom-Egil Jensen
Kokkonen remembers one spring, when big Easter campaigns had been agreed with the stores and the product had been advertised to customers. When the shrimps came to the country, they had already been sold to the shops. This time, however, it happened that the customs decided to take samples of the cargo. The shrimp were stuck in customs until the samples were examined.
– Customs already banned the 17 tons of peeled shrimp I sold to stores. Customs is not flexible at all and the samples are ready when they are ready. I was wondering what to do now, Kokkonen says.
He called the shrimp factory in Norway, explained the situation and asked that another equally large truck load of crabs be sent from the factory.
The stuck crabs were a guarantee, and Kokkonen got a new load, which was taken to the shops. It saved the Easter sale.
According to Kokkonen, Norwegian shrimp never had microbiological problems, so he could be confident that the shrimp would be released from customs in time and could be sold to the next buyers.
Today, the use of shrimp has diversified into a wide variety of food occasions, but according to the survey, pizza is still the most common way of using shell-free frozen shrimp today. This is stated by more than half (53%) of the respondents to the Norwegian Seafood Council’s survey. According to the survey, the most common uses for fresh shrimp are shrimp cocktail (32%) and shrimp salad (30%).
There are several different options for shrimp, but Finns prefer peeled frozen shrimp. The second most purchased is shrimp as part of ready meals, salads and sandwiches.
The shrimp classic is, of course, Toast Skagen, which was developed by Tore Wretman, the restaurateur of Stockholm’s Riche restaurant. In the 1950s, he combined light bread fried in butter with mayonnaise-based shrimp paste and garnished the dish with roe and fresh dill. Toast Skagen is still very popular in restaurants and cafes.