Acquisitions Heino’s wholesale will go down in history, Valio will give the wholesale a new name

Dairy company Valio acquired Heino’s wholesale in the summer of 2021. The completed acquisition has progressed to the point where Valio gives the wholesale business a name under its own brand.

Valio Wholesale will hereinafter be known as Valio Aimo. Wholesale offers its services to restaurants, hotels, catering services, bakeries and public administration and industrial customers in Finland. The operations also include express wholesalers located in the Helsinki metropolitan area.

“The fun part of the name’s story is that Aimo is known as Heino’s wholesale brand and now remains involved in the new joint wholesale,” Valio Aimo’s business director Tuomas Sorri says in a press release.

Prior to the acquisition, the family business Heino Wholesale operated for more than a hundred years. The family-owned company Tukkuheino, which owns Heino’s wholesale, also includes the Anton & Anton chain as well as fish processing operations, the import of alcohols and brewing operations. Tukkuheino will continue to operate independently.

Competition and The Consumer Agency (KKV) approved Valio’s acquisition in the summer on the condition that Valio undertakes to protect the sensitive information of competitors received as a result of the acquisition so that it is not transmitted to the organization in a manner detrimental to competition. The data protection commitment is valid for 10 years from the approval of the acquisition.

Prior to Valio, Heino’s wholesale company was tried to be bought by the trading company Kesko, which announced in May 2019 that it would buy the company from the family company Tukkuheino and the personal owners. Market law however, banned trade in early 2020.

The Market Court held that the acquisition would have created or strengthened a dominant position. This was the first acquisition prohibited by the Market Court.

Valio and Tukkuheino have not disclosed the purchase price of the acquisition to the public.