Ståhlberg Bakery 8/09

Mrs. Pirkko Viskari

A lovely smell of fresh buns reaches my nose as I am chatting with Mrs. Pirkko Viskari in Ståhlberg Cafeteria in Ideapark. The busy shopping centre and the fresh-made buns make a nice combination. One could sit here for even longer!

Mrs. Pirkko Viskari says that Ståhlberg Bakery was founded in 1955. The business started when Mrs. Fanni Ståhlberg and Mrs. Elli Raekallio got their skills together in order to create a successful bakery that still offers authentic, home-made tasting products. Home made is how Mrs. Viskari best describes the bakery.

Mmmm...

New atmospheres

The entrepreneurs Mr. and Mrs. Viskari, didn’t start their business in a usual way. They didn´t learn the bakery business in a school nor did they heritate it from their parents. Mrs. Viskari was working in a kinder garden and her husband was a police officer. Neither one had ever dreamed of business in the bakering industry.

Luckily, life is sometimes surprising and the Viskari couple is open and curious for new challenges. So as the first opportunity came, they started their new business in bakery industry. Mrs. Viskari had some experience in restaurants, but Mr. Viskari´s experiences were limited in childhood´s baking moments with his mother.

With the help of good personnel they started to learn about the business and, according to Mrs. Viskari, they haven’t regretted it once - - even the work is not always luxurious.

The couple doesn’t have much time to vacations, especially when Mr. Viskari also takes care of the work in their countryside cottage. They don’t really travel either, but Mrs. Viskari has a perfect solution: her children travel and report their experiences back home as their mother follows their adventurous trips from a map and reads their exciting travel stories. This virtual travelling is enough for her -- at least for now.

These fresh buns are sold rapidly

Instead of saluting – just send a”riävä”!

The company´s most known product is barley bread called ”riävä”. Normally written “rievä”, this bread is rewarded as Finland´s best.

Their products also include other breads, cupcakes and buns. They have approximately two hundred products in their selection at the moment. Not all of them are made daily, though.

Other customers’ favourites are delicious cakes, mini-Viennese, buns and little pizzas.

Appreciation for the personnel

Mrs. Viskari truly appreciates her personnel, who have been helping her to learn about the industry. Part of the personnel has been more than 30, some more than 40 years, working for Ståhlberg. There is now 28 people working in the bakery, but the amount of personnel changes by seasons.

They have been lucky with good personnel. When the company is doing well, it also guarantees the workers safer base. Even with the recession, the bakery hasn’t laid off workers. They have been busy and actually had to hire more people.

Mrs. Viskari thinks that when people are going through tough times, they tend to seek small pleasures, such as fresh buns and nice cup of coffee.

Fun and interesting

Mrs. Viskari likes to work and it shows! The same goes with her husband. “We are both workaholics”, she says. It is no wonder that this couple won the Entrepreneur of the year award in 2001.

The company has the main bakery and coffee shops in Lempäälä centre and Ideapark. The Ståhlberg coffee shops in Valkeakoski and Tampere are in private possession. Mrs. Viskari doesn’t dream of any more stores. Now it is time to think what to do in couple of years. Should the company be sold and the owners retire or can they find someone close who would like to take on the company.

She is not, however, that sure if she could just give the bakery up. “This is so much fun! What would I ever do without the bakery?” she wonders.

It is really difficult to imagine this energetic woman lying on a couch at home.
She actually came to work two winters ago with a kickboard. Last winter she missed, but next winter she takes her kickboard in use again in order to kick her way to work.

Mrs. Viskari likes to swim in her spare time. She goes often to Rantala sauna in winter time and dips herself into cold water. The enthusiastic swimmer can’t wait for Ideapark swimming pool to open. The swimming bag is packed and ready to go, she laughs.

(The bakery was visited by Mrs. Päivi Nahkola)