New, sustainably produced Pirkka Costa Rica coffee to K-food stores
K-food stores will start selling completely new UTZ certified Pirkka Costa Rica coffee at the beginning of May. This new coffee, developed to suit the Finnish taste, will replace Costa Rica, K-food stores’ private label coffee for 45 years.
The new coffee will be an addition to the Pirkka product range. "Pirkka Costa Rica coffee has undergone careful and most thorough quality tests of the Pirkka range, tastings included. The light roast and full-flavoured coffee is of premium quality and taste, and it has been developed to suit the Finnish taste. We trust that its quality and taste will equal those of the market leaders in coffee," says Kaija Grommi, Kesko Food’s Category Manager.
The Pirkka Costa Rica coffee is UTZ certified. UTZ CERTIFIED is a global, neutrally monitored certification program, the only one that concentrates solely on coffee. It is based on the demanding Code of Conduct, which aims at the wellbeing of people and the environment and helps growers develop and become professionals in coffee growing. The certification proves that the coffee has been produced responsibly, with care for the local communities and the environment.
"We want to be forerunners with respect to our selections and responsibility. This decision will increase the sale of our private label coffee produced under the neutrally monitored, leading certification programmes, UTZ CERTIFIED and Fairtrade, and produced sustainably, to over 90% ," says Matti Saastamoinen, Kesko Food’s Purchasing Manager.
The first types of the new Pirkka Costa Rica coffee on sale in stores will be the 500 g packs of filter and coarse ground. In late summer the range will be complemented with the new UTZ certified Pirkka Espresso and Pirkka Organic coffees. The revised Pirkka Fairtrade coffee will be launched to the market at the start of 2008.
At the beginning of May, a new ’trace your coffee’ feature will be added to the pirkka.fi site. With the help of the ’best before’ date, consumers will be able to trace the contents of their Pirkka Costa Rica packs all the way to the coffee farm and get more information about the origins of their coffee.
Further information:
Purchasing Manager Matti Saastamoinen, Kesko Food Ltd, tel. +358 1053 22858
Category Manager Kaija Grommi, Kesko Food Ltd, tel. +358 1053 22260
Press service: www.vision.fi/ruokakesko
Pirkka is K-food stores’ private label range, which consists of over 1,600 products. In recent years, the Pirkka range has received several valued awards, the latest of which was the selection of Pirkka organic carrot puree as the Finnish Organic Product of the Year 2007.
You can read more about UTZ certification at www.utzcertified.org
Kesko (www.kesko.fi) is a retail specialist whose stores offer quality to the daily lives of consumers through valued products and services at competitive prices. Kesko operates in the Nordic and Baltic countries and Russia.
