Company visit to the berry and vegetable farm of Jarmo Valtari.

Interview with Reija Valtari on July 12, 2023, at Berrie- and Vegetablefarm Jarmo Valtari in Vähäkyrö.

Jarmo Valtari's parents were market vendors of their own produced berries and vegetables throughout their professional lives. In 1986, Jarmo and Reija Valtari took over the production and started producing strawberries and root vegetables on a larger scale while continuing the market vending, which is still ongoing to this day. Ten years later, in 1996, the farm transitioned to exclusively producing pesticide-free strawberries, which proved to be a good investment. It turns out that many people who showed symptoms of strawberry allergies can eat unsprayed strawberries without any issues.

Today, strawberries are cultivated on approximately 5 hectares, and the varieties are largely determined by the customers. Currently, Polka is the most popular variety for picking (55-60% of sales), followed by Sonata with approximately 30% of sales. Additionally, the farm has between 5-10 different so-called novelties, which are strawberries that are either new to the market or new to the farm. This year, the harvest has been slightly smaller than normal. Currently, the strawberries are ripening a bit too quickly due to the stable and sunny weather. During the spring, everything was slow due to cold weather, rain, and wind.

At the moment, the vast majority of picked strawberries are self-picked, partly because the market vending has decreased and it is also too labor-intensive. At the same time, there is a trend showing that surprisingly many people prefer self-picking over pre-picked strawberries. The farm has set up a small adventure park for both adults and children by offering playground equipment and toys for the kids and coffee with homemade sugar donuts for the adults, all of this provided free of charge for all visitors.

In addition to growing strawberries, they also offer their own produced early potatoes, onions, peas, and carrots for sale in connection with strawberry purchases.

As mentioned earlier, the majority of the picked strawberries are self-picked by customers, which in turn means that the need for employees has significantly decreased over the years. Currently, Vlad from Bulgaria is the farm's supervisor; he arrived in 2016 and has been working there since then. All other field workers (about 10) are from Ukraine, but the "checkout staff" are still Finns, mainly because that group needs to be fluent in both Finnish and Swedish.

In previous years, they used to advertise strawberry sales in various newspapers and write blogs about farming and life in the countryside, but nowadays, almost 100% of their marketing is done through social media. On the busiest holidays, they can have several hundred customers who all need to find parking space on the farm, and sometimes customers even park on the roadside. As the season is coming to an end, they will completely close down the farm shop.

Text and pictures: Mats Sabel and Heidi Kuparinen