Ilta-Sanomat acquires the internet service Ruokala.tv concentrating on food and the service concept from its founders Visa Nurmi and Antti Vahtera. Ruokala serves home chefs with over 3,000 recipes.

Ilta-Sanomat's objective is to build Ruokala into Finland's leading food media service.



"Ilta-Sanomat has selling power, development resources and 1.3–1.5 million unique internet visitors per week. Ruokala's current visitor numbers can be increased significantly by actively guiding visitors from Iltasanomat.fi," says Pekka Harju, President of Ilta-Sanomat Oy.

"In future, the internet will be the most important source of information on cooking. It's not possible to develop the service sufficiently and fast enough with the present ownership base. Ilta-Sanomat has the resources and expertise to do this," Visa Nurmi says.

The service will be integrated into Iltasanomat.fi. In addition to the internet, Ruokala will be featured, for example, in the newspaper through daily food tips. The sellers will continue as developers of the service and as chefs.

Ruokala's co-operation with TV channel MTV3 will continue both on MTV3's Huomenta Suomi programme and on the internet.

Currently, the Ruokala.tv internet service has 45,000–78,000 unique visitors per week.

Ilta-Sanomat is part of the Sanoma, division of the SanomaWSOY Group. SanomaWSOY's strategic objective is to increase its focus on digital media. The acquisition helps to implement this strategic choice.