Nokian Panimo - Never underestimate a good story

The strong rise of a Finnish microbrewery

Nokian Panimo was founded in 1991, with the desire to produce beer locally along with a great team while focusing on creating quality. A long and rich history makes Nokian Panimo the second oldest microbrewery in Finland. In 2009, their turnover was under one million euros and in 2021 they reached a record turnover of 8,6 million euros.

Since the spring of 2021, Nokian Panimo has been led by Janne Paavola. Janne began working a summer job at Nokian Panimo back in 2013 and worked both in production and in the warehouse and as a vendor at the brewery shop. In 2016 and 2017 Janne worked as the Controller for the company and developed the monitoring of the finance and reporting, the productivity forecasting, social media channels and brewery visits. In 2018, he became the CFO of the company, before eventually taking over as the CEO in 2021.

“Along the years, I got a very good understanding of the overarching business. I also wrote my graduate thesis for the brewery, which focused on activity based costing and which we still have in use at Nokian Panimo today”, Janne says.

We want to be the best microbrewery in Finland.

In the 90s and the beginning of the 21st century, Nokian Panimo showed promise with their popular cider called ‘Linda’. The brewery business was, however, full of challenges and it showed no profitability. In 2007, as microbreweries were not yet considered trendy, Nokian Panimo was heading toward bankruptcy. That is when Henrik Andersin, who had a passion for beverages and an instinct for business, had visited the United States and seen the rise of local microbreweries and so decided to invest in Nokian Panimo. With the help of Andersin, Nokian Panimo was able to pay all of its debt and started to make a new rise in the Finnish brewery business.

“There would be no brewery without this investment. We have a great owner who is active at our board meetings, who brings great know-how and who is encouraging yet gives us operatively free hands to be creative and to implement new functions into the business,” Janne Paavola says. “Today, our brewery has many shareholders, but the way we do things has remained true to our core and we will make sure that it continues to do so”, Janne continues.

“When you look for an investor you should never underestimate the importance of a good story, a strong product, a great team and content customers. When all these are in order, the quality of the product will also be good. We are dealing with yeast and sugar in the brewery, which are living products and so high quality is crucial”, Janne adds.

 “We want to be the best microbrewery in Finland.”

/ Janne paavola /

Versatile and multidimensional beers

Janne states that the beverage business is attractive since beverages will always be consumed, but that it is rapidly changing. Today, alcohol consumption is on the decline. Janne claims that the fragmentation of the business is a growing trend as a result of the customer demand diversifying. Even if the volume of sales remains the same, there will be a lot more products to choose from. Nowadays, a big store can have up to 700 different beers in their assortment, and Nokian Panimo will have to do various things right in order for the consumer to choose and remain loyal to them. For comparison, there were around 6000 different articles in the 90s, and today, there are around 38 000.

“We need to be ahead of things, coming up with innovations and new products all the time. Only five years ago, new products were developed in moderation but now you see both retailers and consumers demanding them at a fast pace. We need to keep up with the speed by having a strong team that wants to continuously develop and create high quality products if we want to keep our shelf spaces in the stores. In our advantage, being a local producer has become increasingly more important, especially during the pandemic and the war. The rising trend of microbreweries has also been beneficial, as people are ready to drink quality beer at a higher price. Moreover, we choose our staff first and foremost from our own village and have taken influence from the sports industry on how to communicate with our consumers in order to make them loyal to our brand”, Janne adds.

Janne believes that beer as a beverage is versatile and clearly on the uprise.

“There are a lot of different beers on the market but in Finland we most commonly know the light lager. However, just like with wine, there are many different styles and dimensions to beer and we are increasingly starting to combine it with food. For example, you can start off your dinner with a bubbly, fruity and acidic sauer beer rather than with a wine.”

Strive to find what your true passion is in life

“I believe that the meaning of life is to be happy, but believing in your passion, your goals and in yourself is equally as important. You can study and train to become anything, but you should strive toward your core purpose. If you are able to make that your job that is really great. Passion is the key factor that helps you reach a higher position in a company, compared to someone who has trained without passion. Passion is much more valuable than any certificate”, Janne concludes.