Our History

1883

Ferdinand Frigrén and his son Anders establish Oy Lahden Polttimo Ab as a spirits distillery in Lahti, Finland. The original brick building still stands on Viking Malt premises in Lahti.

1919

Prohibition begins in Finland. Manufacturing, selling, and using alcohol products is forbidden by law. The Polttimo company pivots to manufacturing baker’s yeast from molasses.

1934

Prohibition ends in Finland in 1932. Polttimo resumes distilling spirits, while also continuing in yeast production. In 1934, Polttimo widens its scope by beginning to produce brewing malt.

1971

Throughout the 1960s, Polttimo begins to export its products outside Finland. In 1971, the Swedish agricultural cooperative Lantmännen acquires a share in Polttimo. A concrete result of this new collaboration is the establishing of Nord Malt, a Finnish-Swedish joint venture in Söderhamn, on the east coast of Sweden.

1997

Further international adventures from the 1970s onwards culminate in a new joint venture in 1997, as Svenska Malt begins operating in Southern Sweden.

2001

Polttimo reorganizes itself into a Group structure. The new Polttimo Companies consists of two business units: Viking Malt Group focuses on malt production while Polttimo Food Ingredients, Finnish Yeast Ltd, Oy Maltaz Ab and Oy Bionfincon Ab operate in other areas of the food industry.

2002

Until 2002 Viking Malt acts as mainly a marketing company for its three malting units: Svenska Malt, Lahden Polttimo and UAB Litmalt. Now they combine to form an entirely new, unified company under the Viking Malt brand. In this same year, Viking Malt makes large-scale malting investments in Halmstad, Sweden and Panevezys, Lithuania.

2016

Viking Malt joins forces with Danish Malting Group, the largest malting house in Denmark. This acquisition brings three new malt houses to the Viking Malt fold: one in Denmark and two in Poland.

2023

Viking Malt celebrates its 140th anniversary by opening a new malting plant in Lahti, Finland. The state-of-the-art Finmalt facility can produce 85 000 annual tonnes of base and specialty malts. It’s also equipped to produce Sprau, Viking Malt’s malted faba bean innovation.

More than 140 years after starting our journey, the current Viking Malt is still very much a family company. Co-founder Anders Frigrén’s great grandson Pär-Gustaf Relander is Chairman of the Board for Polttimo Companies Ltd which owns Viking Malt together with Lantmännen.