When it comes to brewing and the grasp of the local industry in Finland, Customer Development Manager Jaakko Manni is a bona fide expert. Since joining Caldic Finland, he has used his invaluable market insight to cultivate a strong presence for Humlegårdens Ekolager (part of Caldic).

Brewing beers is not an uncharted territory for Jaakko. He ran a successful brewing business himself that faced the brunt of escalating geopolitical tensions in neighboring countries. Working with Caldic was an obvious move. “I knew the folks from Humlegårdens because I’ve been in this business for over a decade,” Jaakko says, “joining them was a no-brainer.”

His experience in the Finnish market, and familiarity with the local customers and suppliers, enabled him to craft a flourishing brewing business in the region – enabling Humlegårdens to establish themselves in the country.

Since Humlegårdens’ is based in Sweden, it was important that Finnish customers could easily find the products. “I had a clean starting point. I would singlehandedly manage the web shop for my business, so setting up an inventory of products was relatively easy,” he explains.

The kicker was that bulk products, such as malts and KeyKegs were only available on the Swedish systems, and advising Finnish customers to work with systems from two countries or to streamline them would take time. “I had to ensure they were available in the Finland warehouse so they could easily distributed,” he clarifies.

“Essentially, there are two places to order from depending on what they want. How do we make this convenient for them?” Having longstanding relationships and building new ones was crucial. Jaakko scouts Facebook and even joins brewing groups to engage with potential customers and brewing enthusiasts. “And,” he stresses, “having warehouses in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, ensures a steady supply.”

Since the beginning of this year, the Finnish branch of Humlegårdens Ekolager has seen a significant rise in sales thanks to Jaakko’s efforts.