HOK-Elanto, Finland's biggest cooperative retailer, announced Monday that its Prisma supermarkets would continue to stock milk from Finnish dairy Valio alongside cartons from Arla.

Last week, national daily Helsingin Sanomat reported that HOK-Elanto had replaced Valio with Denmark-based Arla as its main milk supplier, triggering a torrent of criticism on the internet as well as by farmers' lobby MTK and Matti Vanhanen (centre), the prime minister.

Matti Niemi, the managing director of HOK-Elanto, said the debate of the past few days had shown that consumers cared about brands as well as the country of origin.

He repeated that Arla Ingman -branded milk came from Finnish farms.

Arla was HOK-Elanto's main milk supplier until a year ago when the cooperative signed a deal with Valio.

STT