Radio | News week in plain Finnish | Sunday 23.11.2025

The diet of Finns

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There has been a change in the diet of Finns.

It seems that the change has been influenced by the dietary recommendations that were given a year ago.

Now we will tell you more about it.

The change will be reflected in the shopping cart

![Satsumas for sale on the shelf](https://images.cdn.yle.fi/image/upload/c_crop,h_3213,w_5710,x_0,y_0/ar_1.7777777777777777 ,c_fill,g_faces,h_431,w_767/dpr_1.0/q_auto:eco/f_auto/fl_lossy/v1763714760/39-143002167c5a7e57be50)

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Finns are buying more fruit, berries and vegetables than before. Photo: Jarkko Heikkinen / Yle

There has been a big change in the diet of Finns. The change is visible in the kind of food people buy in stores.

People are now buying more vegetables and fish and less meat and cold cuts, according to sales data from S-stores. S-stores include Prisma, S-market and Alepa.

The change began about a year ago when new dietary recommendations were published.

Vegetables, no cold cuts

The picture shows a supermarket refrigerated shelf with various cold cuts on sale.

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Sales of cold cuts have decreased. Photo: Mikko Savolainen / Yle

Dietary recommendations are researchers’ guidelines for what constitutes a healthy diet. For example, the recommendations say that it is good to eat up to 800 grams of vegetables, berries and fruit per day.

It is best to eat as little sausage and cold cuts as possible, such as slices of ham. Instead of meat, it is better to eat vegetable proteins or fish.

When the new recommendations were released, some people got angry. They said they didn’t need advice and prohibitions, but decided for themselves what to eat.

Now let’s buy tofu and berries

Sales data from S-stores shows that food recommendations have nevertheless remained in the minds of Finns.

Sales of vegetables and fruits have grown by 4 percent in a year, and sales of berries by as much as 15 percent. In a store survey, customers say that instead of cold cuts, they now put cucumber, tomato, bell pepper and lettuce on their bread.

Sales of cold cuts have decreased by 7 percent since last year. Sales of sausage and meat have also decreased slightly.

Finns are now buying tofu, sales of which have increased by 17 percent in a year. Fresh fish and fish products are also being purchased more than before.

The store says that many factors influence people’s purchasing decisions. Healthiness is important, but for many, the most important thing is the price of the food.

Repetition

The topic of the news week this time was the change in the diet of Finns.

People are now buying more vegetables and fish from the store and less meat, sausages and cold cuts.

S-kauppa says that the change began about a year ago when new food recommendations were published.

See you next week!