Good to know about Finland and Levi

Food and alcohol

There are two supermarkets in Levi that represent two chains in Finland. Levimarket (K-market) and S-Market. Levimarket has a wider selection of food and has also plenty of all kinds of other goods, toys etc. You name it, they most likely have it. They also have a selection of fresh meat, fish and some ready made food (sushi every Friday). S-Market has all the basics and next to it Alko, which is a liqueur store. In Finland you can only buy beer and cider as well as mild wine in a grocery store. Should you wish to have some sparkling, wine or strong alcohol, you need to head to Alko. There is an age restriction of 18 to buy any alcohol and 20 to buy strong (more than 22%) alcohol. Please also note that you can only buy alcohol products from 9 am to 9 pm.

One important product is milk and as it’s a bit tricky to know which to buy, so here is a quick guide for that too.

Rasvaton maito – skimmed milk, kevytmaito – semi skimmed milk, täysmaito – full fat milk, laktoositon – lactose free, luomu – organic. Maitojuoma is milk drink, similar to milk but cheaper (I guess there’s more water in it :)). Oat milk is called kauramaito but most of the products have the word oat in their name.

Suomesta means from Finland, suomalainen is Finnish. Lähiruokaa means locally produced. Luomu is organic.

Parasta ennen means best before and viimeinen käyttöpäivä means expiration date.

Recycling

When you buy sodas, beer or wine, the bottles and cans have a deposit of around 0,10€ (depending on the size of the bottle). This means that when you return your bottles and cans to pullonpalautus (machine both in Levimarket and S-Market), you get money back. You get a receipt from a machine and you can cash it in the shop/Alko. In S-Market there is also a red mail box for those that wish to give their pennies to local youth.

Glass containers, metals, cardboard, plastics and used batteries you can return at the recycling bins at the parking lot of S-Market or near the roundabout, around 150 meters “uphill” from the cabin. You can also leave these at the cabin and our maintenance will sort them out. Normal paper and plastic wrappings you can just put in the mixed waste. Unfortunately there is no separate bin for food waste, so please buy only as much as you can consume.

Tap water

Tap water is excellent in the municipal of Kittilä. It is better than bottled water, so leave the bottles and enjoy the ice cold water straight from the tap.