Whenever I meet other immigrants, I make a point of asking them where I can find or eat their country’s authentic food here in Finland. All expats have their food sources and we should share them more often. Ask any Italian person living in Finland (or wherever abroad) and they will complain how they miss Italian food and cuisine.
My husband and I are both Italian and we packed our cooking habits along with us. Don’t get me wrong, our culinary horizons broadened consistently after moving to Finland and after adopting our son from India, but our basic cooking style stays Italian. We eat pasta almost every day; every weekend my husband makes pizza for the family; we didn’t give in to salad sauces and appreciate raw flavours.

In eight years, I have build a network of convenient food suppliers I am most proud of. Italian cuisine is appreciated worldwide and many local friends have appreciated my advice on where to conveniently source ingredients, so I thought, why not summarise them in a post? Overall you will find anything in grocery shops, but if you use the ingredients listed here fairly often or want to buy a bigger bulk to split with friends, you will find better bargains from these vendors.

Pasta and risotto rice

Pasta is extremely cheap in Italy and 1kg of respectable quality pasta costs around 80 cents. The pasta you find in most Finnish shops is either low quality (I’m talking Torino, Pirkka, Baresa) or high-quality but expensive (Garofalo). Barilla and De Cecco represent a good compromise, but variety is extremely limited. I gave up to finding a deal comparable to Italy, but there’s a way to buy at a cheaper price than shops and be allowed to choose whatever pasta type you ever dreamed of. The De Cecco e-shop serves customer in English language, it ships to Finland and orders over 50 kg are entitled to free delivery. If you team up with a couple of friends, 50 kg are easy to top. In addition, pasta has long expiration time and can be stored for over a year (but do not keep it in cold storage, it gets damaged). You will find any type of pasta in there. The 3kg packages are the most convenient.
De Cecco e-shop is also where I buy my risotto rice. Risotto requires certain kinds of rice and the very best ones are considered to be Carnaroli and Vialone, the latter being cheaper.

Pasta sauces and pesto

Pasta toppings are one of the things I miss the most here. Ready-made sauces are an quick-and-easy solution, but I am not willing to compromise with what you find here. Don’t get me started on Dolmio… yuk! Moreover, the pesto brands you find in local shops barely include basil or pine nuts (can you even call them pesto?). Barilla produces good pasta, but its sauces are meh.
My go-to place is Eataly.net. Their website is fully in English and delivery of orders exceeding 69 euros is free. Eataly regularly change their offer and prices can really differ product by product (not all have convenient deals). I really love their pasta sauces, for instance the brands Il Vallino or Bonamici. The pesto sauces sold here are more expensive than the ones you find in shops but they are more intensely flavoured. For comparison, if you buy a 190g jar of pesto Saclà, it’s so bland you need to use it all to top four portions of pasta. With the same quantity of pesto from Italpesto from Eataly.net, you feed twice as many people (with better taste).

Tomato sauce

Between pasta and pizza, I estimate that our family uses 5L of tomato sauce a month. We appreciate most passata (the smooth one), but others prefer polpa (tomato sauce with finely chopped pieces). This is another thing not to go cheap on, since it’s such a dominant flavour in Italian dishes. You can find good brands in local shops (I appreciate Biona and Mutti), but personally I order from Eataly.net. My favourite brands of passata are Antonella, Dani Coop and Bonamici. Sometime these brands go out of stock and others are too expensive: in such case the tomato sauces from De Cecco e-shop are a good replacement.

Parmigiano / Parmesan cheese and olive oil

The local Italian association organises buying groups of different brands of olive oil once a year from trusted (and tested) Italian suppliers, on account of its members. Similarly, parmesan cheese is ordered three to four times a year. There is no minimum order nor additional fees, but you need to be a member of the association. Being a member entitles you to plenty of discounts in restaurants and shops as well, so the small membership fees pays off quickly if you are fond of Italian food. Ordering parmesan cheese from the association costs less than half what you would pay in any grocery shop (and quality is excellent).

Cold cuts (prosciutto, mortadella…)

The best quality / price ratio for these can be found in Lidl. Mortadella is part of the standard assortment, as well as salame, prosciutto crudo and often prosciutto cotto.

Everything else

If there’s something else you fancy and you are not able to find in general grocery stores (whose offer is quite wide nowadays), here’s a shortlist of local shops selling Italian products:
Signora Delizia (sauces, high-quality pasta, chocolate, seasonal products, the go-to place for panettone, pandoro and colomba)
Casa Italia (mostly cold cuts and cheese, sometime seasonal products…)
La Tartufata (sauces, high-quality pasta, chocolate…)
La Bottega 13 (cold cuts, cheese…)
Italian Herkut (everyday products, cookies…)
Hakaniemen kauppahalli (cold cuts, cheese…)
Vaelsa (fresh pasta)

I hope this list will help Italian cuisine’s fans in Finland to access ingredients more conveniently and easily. Did you appreciate this list? What’s your best supplier for your home-country foods in Finland? Share it in the comments down below.