A new health, beauty and wellness store concept, Hehku, is to open its doors in Finland at the end of January 2018.
The chain is jointly owned by Finnish retailer Kesko and retail pharmacy firm Oriola-KD, and will run 30 stores across the country over the course of the coming year.
“In total, we will be opening 30 Hehku stores across Finland next year and recruiting 200 wellbeing professionals," said Tuomas Mattelmäki, the managing director of Hehku. "Our aim is to build a nationwide chain of 100 stores, and create some 1,000 jobs in the process."
The new stores will offer a selection of 10,000 products such as Finnish Lumene cosmetics, the Finnish Olivia Klein skincare range and the Biomed nutritional supplements.
Hehku says it will also introduce entirely new products to the Finnish market, including the Floxia skin cosmetics and the Neville men’s cosmetics range.
Room For More Wellness
Kesko and Oriola-KD commissioned a survey that found that the majority of respondents (78%) consider their personal level of wellbeing 'good', while nearly half (48%) still see room for improvement.
”Health is still seen as the most important contributing factor to wellbeing,” said Heidi Jungar, strategy director at Frankly Partners, which conducted the survey. "Promisingly, the survey results suggest that recovery, social ties and nutrition are considered equally important to physical exercise.
“Different age groups emphasise different things, but people of all ages acknowledge that there are various factors contributing to health, wellbeing and consequently beauty."
Kesko and Oriola-KD announced in March 2017 that they were seeking permission from the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority to establish their joint well-being chain, which was granted in June.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Kevin Duggan. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
