Home » Osakeyhtiö Hallman invests in areas where growth and development are possible

Osakeyhtiö Hallman invests in areas where growth and development are possible

14.3.2025

Osakeyhtiö Hallman, a limited liability company, has never been tied to just one industry, instead enjoying a long history spanning everything from bakery operations to high tech solutions. In terms of the bigger picture, the company’s operations are centred around establishing, developing, growing and selling companies.

Osakeyhtiö Hallman has a history of over 150 years. The great-great-grandfather of Jukka Hallman, the current chair of the board, established a grocery store in Kuopio in 1875, before expanding his business operations to cover the sawmill industry, milling and ship outfitting. Look back through the company’s history and you will also find thread spool and matchstick factories, wholesale trade and the development of Halltex interior panels.

One high point in Osakeyhtiö Hallman’s story was the sale of a match stick factory in the 1920s. With a hint of jealousy, people have said that Jukka Hallman’s great-grandfather made enough money from this sale to allow even current generations to play at being businessman. Hallman, however, prefers not to put too much emphasis on history.

“History does not pay today’s wages,” he laughs.

However, there are links between the past and the present day in that the sale of the match stick factory was finalised in Stockholm in the 1920s at the Kreuger headquarters, in a building known as the Matchstick Palace, which currently operates as a short-term office hire facility. As chance would have it, five years ago Jukka Hallman sold the car wash chain he had up to a Swedish private equity investment firm whose office was located in the same building. The deal was signed in the building’s board room, just like his great-grandfather deal had been.

First stop: Kuopio, next stop: the world

Nowadays, Osakeyhtiö Hallman owns the bakery F.K. Trube Oy, Viking Restaurant Harald Oy and the car wash digitalisation service Superoperator Oy. The latter came along when Jukka Hallman started looking for high-tech options in the early 2000s to join the company’s businesses. Around the same time, he founded the animal diagnostics laboratory Movet, developed it into Finland’s leading animal diagnostics laboratory and sold it in 2021 to a competitor: IDEXX Finland.

Hallman and the team then developed Superoperator, which operates fully internationally – it has no customers in Finland. The company focuses solely on the IT side of things, with its operations based on comprehensive customer management and a marketing system. Car washes on three continents, spanning Europe, the United States and Australia, are controlled from Kuopio.

“We wanted into expand to a sector that lends itself to export. There is no need to pack IT up on a ship, and dockers’ strikes do not hamper operations. When we started operations in Finland, no one believed that car washes could be controlled digitally. The Americans took to the service immediately, we have really big customers there,” sums up Hallman.

Versatile all-rounder with an eye for opportunities

According to Jukka Hallman, Osakeyhtiö Hallman is a versatile all-rounder, always on the look out for new opportunities and never tied to just one industry. The company invests in areas where growth and development are possible and gets out of sectors where there is a significant risk of being left in others’ wake. Next, the company will start to investigate whether AI could be of interest to the company.

Hallman’s story is not just a series of successes, however. When asked about the difficulties encountered through its history, Jukka Hallman sums up his take:

“Let’s just say that the sometimes things have been plain sailing, but most often that is not the case. An entrepreneur’s life is marked by momentary bursts of feeling great.”

Internationalisation has required the company to be bold and believe in what it does. Strong expertise has also helped with internationalisation. With their carwash digitalisation service, they hit upon a market where there was burgeoning demand but not yet supply. Superoperator was therefore able to set the market specifications itself.

Hallman has noticed that modesty does not get you far on the international market. Superoperator was launched with the fanfare of a much bigger company: its actual turnover might have been zero, but it had the website of a business turning over billions. He encourages others to go out there and talk themselves up, with open eyes and an open mind.

Osakeyhtiö Hallman’s website (in Finnish)

---

Highly skilled personnel available in Kuopio

Jukka Hallman, chair of the Board of Directors of Osakeyhtiö Hallman, sees the availability of a high-quality workforce as the main reason for the company’s headquarters and many of its operations being in Kuopio. Of its subsidiaries, only Viking Restaurant Harald has restaurants in other locations as well. According to Hallman, Kuopio offers highly skilled staff for all kinds of companies, from bakeries to IT firms. Not to mention the laboratory sector, with chemists, microchemists, and microbiologists graduating from the city’s institutions of higher education.

“Kuopio is in a great place for entrepreneurs,” declares Hallman.

---

Text by Minna Akiola
Photos by Osakeyhtiö Hallman