Diversifying the seafood market of Finland through international sourcing

Abstract

Finland as a country has been trying to diversify itself on all aspects. Within the recent years, Finland has been taking in more and more numbers of immigrants each year from all around the globe. With that wave of immigrants comes cultural diversity in several aspects such as business conduct, art, technical advances and most of all, culinary. For the sake of culinary diversification, Finland has two options, one of which is to improve its own domestic production. However, such an approach would mean unbalancing the nation’s delicate nature and tapping into unknown, unassured ingredient options. The second option for Finland is to increase importation intake. Since traditional importation markets have failed to suffice, Finland must seek its seafood elsewhere.

Due to its geographic conditions, which allow only the major land borderline with Russia and a limited land connection with Sweden and Norway, Finland is quite a way from most of the seafood producing regions apart from its traditional international supply sources, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. That fact drives the price of imported seafood options many times above their original levels at the production bases. Before, with the quite simple Finnish cuisine and relatively small and prosaic population, Finland as a country has little needs for such expensive sources of food. However, with the current rise in cultural and population expansion, the seafood industry of Finland could really appreciate a more proliferate supply. The only problem remains is to seek to import at higher, more stable volume, and less cost.