1. Suomen Kerta Oy Noora Laine 22.2.2011

2.  Established in 1987  Has three different production units: ◦ Imatra (Paper plates and cups, biodegradable plates and cups, plastic cups and cutlery, fast food packaging, cling films and foil, aluminium trays, coffee filters and customer tailored products ) ◦ Kotka (napkins, tablecloths and tablerunners) ◦ Riihimäki (candles)  Sales office located in Espoo

3.  At the moment we are importing plastic products and candles. Business started with Chinese companies around six years ago.  Newest product category is wooden cutlery.  Supplier for wooden cutlery is new and the project is almost finished. At the moment, we are waiting for the first container to arrive.  Business directly with producers, no agents or wholesalers.

4.  Long delivery times -> creates great challenges for estimating orders.  Freight changes  Advance payment  More competition: minimum order quantities decreased-> more importers  Tariffs -> one need to be aware of Finnish and EU laws

5.  We started by importing plastic bags. First delivery troublesome:  Mixed pallets caused a lot of extra work for our warehouse.  Another incident was with pizza boxes. Our supplier used new way of packing, thinking it would be helpful:  two full containers of pizza packages needed to be repacked.

6.  Once we’ve used agent as intermediary. Product wasn’t what is was suppose to be!  Private label bags withdrawn from the market because of abnormal odor on the bags  Silver cutlery - The Finnish Custom laboratories made a sample analysis test for silver cutlery. Result was rejected because the overall migration was over the EU-plastic directive.  This case is still on the table

7.  All in all Chinese companies are reliable partners. Co-operation is working very well with our long term suppliers.  Surely one needs to be aware of the cultural differences: to our knowledge it’s good to meet Chinese people face to face.  Lots of opportunities: perhaps new products in the future for us as well?