The British LUXLife magazine chose Kouvola Lakritsi as the best liquorice manufacturer in the Food & Drinks Awards category for the second year in a row. The laku factory now holds the title of the world's best liquorice manufacturer for 2020 and 2021.
In the LUXLife magazine competition, category winners are selected by an impartial internal panel, which includes members from business, economics, politics, media and education. The panel collects information from several public sources and bases its final assessment on, among other things, the longevity of the company's business, business growth and significant innovations and the feedback the company has received. According to licorice manufacturer Timo Nisula, being selected by the jury as the best licorice manufacturer for the second year in a row feels naturally great:
It feels really good that our Finnish and Kouvola-made licorice is appreciated abroad. I believe that the recipe for Kouvola Licorice's success in this competition and in general is an excellent product, the best people in the industry, and hard and determined work.
Being noticed in international competition is also great because Kouvola's Lakritsi growth goals are specifically in exports, which have been slightly affected by the second year of corona. Although exports were not quite at their level last year, new territorial conquests were made, for example, in Sweden, and Switzerland and Norway joined the list of export countries. Preliminary agreements were also signed in Japan and England. Despite the slight drop in exports, last year was a successful year for Lakritsi overall, and the plan is to add more to the nest in 2022:
In 2021, we managed to increase our turnover by as much as 28 percent, which is something we can be very pleased with. This year, we will be able to meet the strong demand for licorice even better when we open a completely new factory in Kouvola. The factory will enable us to achieve a completely new production volume, says Nisula.
Read Kouvola's Lakritsi Food and Drink Awards story from last year here .