Sisu is a Finnish brand of candy, currently produced by

Leaf International Leaf International BV was a confectionery company founded in the 1940s. Leaf had sales of approximately €527m (2010) and 2,400 employees. It had 11 factories in seven countries. Leaf was owned by CVC Capital Partners, Nordic Capital, and ma ...

. Sisu was introduced to the market in 1928 by the

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

candy company Tehdas-Osakeyhtiö Seres (later Oy Seres Ab). Development of the candy was begun one year earlier by the Seres chemist Johan Ponkamo, with the intention of developing a candy to match the Swedish

Läkerol Läkerol is a Swedish brand of candies. The candies are sugar-free pastilles with the major ingredient being gum arabic. The candies are produced in a variety of flavors. The candy is produced by the Swedish confectionery company, Cloetta. Läk ...

. For assistance, he used a recipe for wine gum tablets containing

gum arabic Gum arabic (gum acacia, gum sudani, Senegal gum and by other names) () is a tree gum exuded by two species of '' Acacia sensu lato:'' '' Senegalia senegal,'' and '' Vachellia seyal.'' However, the term "gum arabic" does not indicate a partic ...

he had found from a German book. Combining gum arabic and

liquorice Liquorice ( Commonwealth English) or licorice (American English; see spelling differences; ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring is ...

to form a candy with satisfactory composition proved difficult and time-consuming work. The special Sisu aroma was only born after countless attempts and experiments. Its composition is and remains a closely guarded secret. Sisu was an instant success. This was because of a good choice of name and an aroma to match the Finnish taste. Directly after its introduction to the market, Sisu won a gold medal at the international food products fair in

Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...

, Belgium. A picture of the medal won by Sisu was placed on the front side of the candy box, and has been there ever since.

Name and logo

The inventor of the name "Sisu" and its exact moment of conception are not known. Most probably the name was the result of group work at the Seres factory, like many other names of the factory's products.

Sisu is a Finnish word variously translated as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness. It is held by Finns to express their national character. It is generally considered not to have a single-word ...

was a term clearly in fashion in the 1920s. The Sisu packaging and logo was developed by Arnold Tilgmann (1912–1978), 25 years at the time, and working in Turun Kivipaino. The Sisu logo has remained the same since the 1920s. The name "Sisu", printed in old

Fraktur Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. It is designed such that the beginnings and ends of the individual strokes that make up each letter will be clearly vis ...

typeface in the logo (with the

long s The long s, , also known as the medial ''s'' or initial ''s'', is an Archaism, archaic form of the lowercase letter , found mostly in works from the late 8th to early 19th centuries. It replaced one or both of the letters ''s'' in a double-''s ...

), may be mistaken as "GifuLahtinen, Rauno: ''Sisulla siitä selviää'', Atena Kustannus Oy 2008. sisulla.fi/historia
Cloetta. Accessed on 13 April 2015." among those not familiar with the blackletter characters.

Advertising of Sisu

Sisu became a favourite of Finns in the 1930s with very little advertising. The candy was particularly recommended for singers, orators and smokers, in practice it was a popular breath refresher and cough medicine. In the 1950s and 1960s, advertisements for Sisu could be seen in the local press, occasionally in nationwide newspapers, such as

Suomen Kuvalehti ''Suomen Kuvalehti'' ( or 'the Finnish picture magazine') is a weekly Finnish language family and news magazine published in Helsinki, Finland. History and profile ''Suomen Kuvalehti'' was founded in 1873 and published until the year 1880. The m ...

. The same advertisement images were used for several years, sometimes even for several decades. A new era began in advertising in the middle of the 1970s, when Sisu began to be advertised on television. The classic advertisement with the slogan "In the beginning, there was a

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

, a hoe and Jussi" was made by the advertisement company Lintas. The advertisement was an instant favourite among the Finnish public, and it was even broadcast in the 1980s. In the late 1980s, owned by Rettig Group, advertising Sisu was closely connected to

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

. The new owner Leaf also continued with the ice hockey theme. Sisu's ice hockey campaign culminated in Finland's world championship in ice hockey in spring 1995. Sisu ice hockey cards came to the Finnish market in 1993. The cards were published until 1996. On Sisu's 70th birthday in 1998, celebratory advertisements featured the mountaineer

Veikka Gustafsson Eero Veikka Juhani Gustafsson, known as Veikka Gustafsson (born 14 January 1968) is a Finnish people, Finnish Climber (climbing), climber who has ascended all 14 eight-thousanders without using supplemental oxygen. He is also known for presentin ...

. Gustafsson, along with Patrick Degerman, had been the first to climb one of the tallest mountains on the

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

. The mountain was named Mount Sisu. Advertising of Sisu has been closely attached to rock music festivals since the launch of the Sisu Horna candy in 2002. In 2007, Sisu began sponsoring the

power metal Power metal is a subgenre of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional heavy metal with speed metal, often within a symphonic context. Generally, power metal is characterized by a faster, lighter, and more uplifting sound, in co ...

band

Sturm und Drang (, ; usually translated as "storm and stress") was a proto-Romanticism, Romantic movement in German literature and Music of Germany, music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity an ...

, founded in 2004 in

Vaasa Vaasa (; , ), formerly (1855-1917) known as Nikolaistad (; ),Finland-Swedish Finland Swedish or Fenno-Swedish (; ) is a Variety (linguistics), variety of the Swedish language and a closely related group of Swedish dialects spoken in Finland by the Swedish-speaking population of Finland, Swedish-speaking population, common ...

young musicians from 16 to 17 years.

Different flavours of Sisu

In the 1970s, a version of Sisu sweetened with

sorbitol Sorbitol (), less commonly known as glucitol (), is a sugar alcohol with a sweet taste which the human body metabolizes slowly. It can be obtained by reduction of glucose, which changes the converted aldehyde group (−CHO) to a primary alco ...

was introduced to the market. The candy had already been marketed as sugarless, but according to law, candy sweetened with sorbitol could not be marketed as sugarless. Therefore, Sisu developed a new term "Sokton". In the early 1970s, a sugarless version of Sisu and a version sweetened with

xylitol Xylitol is a chemical compound with the formula , or HO(CH2)(CHOH)3(CH2)OH; specifically, one particular Stereoisomerism, stereoisomer with that structural formula. It is a colorless or white crystalline solid. It is classified as a polyalcoho ...

, developed in connection with the

dentistry Dentistry, also known as dental medicine and oral medicine, is the branch of medicine focused on the Human tooth, teeth, gums, and Human mouth, mouth. It consists of the study, diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases, dis ...

department of the

University of Turku The University of Turku (, shortened ''UTU'') is a multidisciplinary public university with eight faculties located in the city of Turku in southwestern Finland. The university also has campuses in Rauma and Pori and research stations in Kevo ...

, were introduced to the market. The first new version of Sisu produced by Leaf was Salmiakki-Sisu, launched in 1994, which immediately became Finland's most sold

salty liquorice Salty liquorice, also known as salmiak liquorice, salmiac liquorice or (in Finland) , is a variety of liquorice (confectionery), liquorice flavoured with salmiak salt (sal ammoniac; ammonium chloride#Food, ammonium chloride), and is a common co ...

candy. Production of sugared Sisu was stopped in 1998. In the 2000s, various new flavours of Sisu have been produced. One of the most popular is Sisu Horna, which is different in composition and sold in small paper bags. Sisu Horna is sweetened with sugar. A new version introduced in the celebratory year 2008 is the liquorice-flavoured Sisu Sysi.

Producers of Sisu

The Seres factory was located in

Hämeenkatu Hämeenkatu is the main street of Tampere, Finland, located in the Keskusta, Tampere, city center. The boulevard is roughly a kilometre long, and wide (driveway and sidewalk) at its widest point. Hämeenkatu is a boulevard, which begins from t ...

in Turku in 1928, after which production shifted to Rauhankatu in 1938. The Seres factory was owned by the Kaukopaasi and Ponkamo families until the 1970s, when it was sold to Rettig Group, known as a tobacco factory. A new factory was opened in Aura in 1973, where Sisu was produced until 2013. Instead, Sisu's owners have changed: Rettig Group sold its candy business to Huhtamäki in 1992, and so Sisu became part of Leaf, owned by Huhtamäki. In 1999, Sisu became owned by the Dutch CSM. Nowadays, Leaf and Sisu are owned by the international investors

CVC Capital Partners CVC Capital Partners plc is a Jersey-based private equity and investment advisory firm with approximately €186 billion of assets under management and approximately €157 billion in secured commitments since inception across American, European, ...

and Nord Capital, and the production was moved to Italy in 2013.

Sources

* Rauno Lehtinen: ''Sisulla siitä selviää!'' Atena, 2008.

References

External links

Sisu page at the website of the Cloetta company
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170709223248/http://www.cloetta.com/en/our-offer/brands/sisu/ , date=9 July 2017 Brand name confectionery Finnish confectionery Finnish brands Breath mints Liquorice (confectionery)