Valuable delicacies

As soon as Benjam’s produce market opens there is a queue at the cash register, and this is just an ordinary Thursday morning in the sleepy village of Iitti, in southeastern Finland. A couple from Nastola, the neighbouring municipality, have a shopping basket of fresh meat, loaves of bread and Finnish savoury pasties. “Everything here is just so good!”

Next in line is Sirpa Havu, a newcomer to Iitti who works Espoo, in Helsinki metropolitan region during the week, but considers Iitti her home. She, too, has an overloaded shopping basket, including five loaves of rye bread. Why so many?

“I send them as presents to friends all over Finland and give them as prizes in competitions that my employer arranges,” Havu reveals. She also takes local specialties to her co-workers in the Helsinki metropolitan region; one person is particularly fond of a local cheese, while another particularly likes the sausages from the produce market. Havu praises all the market’s products to the skies. “The meat is fresh and tasty, the bread is freshly baked locally and just look at those potatoes, they’re very good too!”

Havu is unfazed by the fact that these products are more expensive than the equivalent in the average supermarket. “Quality costs money. Anyone can tell these products all taste so much better.”

RIITTA MUSTONEN
PHOTO SEPPO SAMULI


People come some distance to stock up on the local produce at Benjam’s produce market.