Fazer Has Agreed to Buy Kaslink

Fazer Group focuses on its fast-moving consumer goods and direct-to-consumer businesses and has agreed to buy Kaslink, a family-owned company specialized in developing and manufacturing premium Scandinavian food products, including cooking products, drinks and snacks.

Nutritionally rich and sustainable Nordic oats play a central role in the company’s production. With this acquisition, Fazer is speeding up its transformation into a modern sustainable food company. “We are excited to announce this acquisition as it would be a perfect match for Fazer in executing our strategy. Kaslink is an innovative actor with strong commercial insights, modern production facility and proficiency in production based on technological know-how. These create a highly competitive foundation for selling, marketing and producing sustainable oat-based products on an international scale,” says Christoph Vitzthum, Fazer Group’s president and CEO.

The Kaslink Aito product family is made from Nordic oats and consists of non-dairy drinks, cooking products and snacks. Kaslink has developed well in the Finnish market and its entry into the highly competitive Swedish market has also been successful, creating a platform for future growth in this market. Kaslink is planned to become part of the Fazer Lifestyle Foods business area which focuses on non-dairy grain products, plant-based meals and on-the-go snacking.

Juha-Petteri Kukkonen, chief creative officer and one of the three brothers who own Kaslink, says: “We have created a unique basis for the oat business, a proof of which is that the nearly 130-year-old Fazer wants to embrace the Kaslink Aito product family created by us, the Kukkonen family, and our story that already has such a great beginning.”

The transaction is subject to the Finnish Consumer and Competition Authority approval.