Majlen Fazer, Senior Specialist in Product Quality, Cocoa and Chocolate at the largest Finnish food group, Fazer, is the winner of this year’s ISM Award. The largest and most important trade fair for sweets and snacks worldwide is among others paying tribute to her commitment towards more sustainability in the sweets and snacks industry. Fazer is striving to get the food industry on the path to a liveable future with environmentally-friendly, healthy and high-quality products and packaging. Fazer is well-known in Scandinavia for sweets of all kinds and has been a family business for over 130 years. In the fourth generation, Majlen Fazer, the granddaughter of Karl Frazen, is now on the management board and her aim is to inspire even more people for Fazer chocolate.

The passionate chocolate expert is working “from the bean upwards” to retain the chocolatey taste and secure the quality of the product. To promote her further constant development, the skilled confectioner regularly attends training courses at the confectionery chain Sprüngli on Paradeplatz and with the Swiss pastry specialist, Ewald Notter, who is successful in Miami, Florida today.

She stated that in addition to immaculate product quality, the environmental aspect has always been important to her, i.e. that the production chain is transparent and the origin of the cocoa is sustainable. The cocoa farmers are guaranteed a good income and the living environment is handled responsibly. A circular economy is implemented in the factories and across the value chain to reduce the volume of waste.

Her exceptional contribution to the further development of the sweets and snacks industry will be distinguished at ISM by an international jury comprising of representatives from the industry, trade and science sector. “I am delighted at receiving this distinction, which is a huge honour for the company and shows that my work is highly appreciated,” Majlen Fazer emphasised.  

The ISM Award will be presented during the festive ISM dinner on 23 April 2023. The laudation will be held by Tom Lindblad, Managing Director of Fazer Commercial Units.

Koelnmesse is the organiser of ISM and its industry sponsor is the International Sweets and Biscuits Fair Task Force (AISM).

The history of the group dates back to the year 1891 and began with the Swiss confectioner, Karl Fazer, who was 25 years old at the time. After finishing his training in St. Petersburg, Paris and Berlin, he opened his own business – 130 years ago – a French/Russian/Swiss confectionery in the centre of the Finnish capital city, Helsinki. Over the years, a small confectionery has developed into a sweets empire.

The Fazer group is one of the largest in the Finnish food industry with a headcount over 6,000 employees today in Finland, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Japan. In the meantime, Fazer sweets are exported to almost 40 countries. The turnover is 420 million.

Editorial contact:
Editor: Kiran Grewal kgrewal@kennedys.co.uk