Metsäliitto Leading European Wood Products Innovation Award to Finnforest Kerto. The leading European innovation award within the wood products industry, the Schweighofer Prize, has been given to Professor Matti Kairi and Finnforest Kerto Laminated Veneer Lumber products.

The Schweighofer Prize is an acknowledgement to Matti Kairi,
professor of wood technology in the Helsinki University of
Technology, who has worked for 30 years with the Kerto wood products.
He worked in the service of Metsäliitto Wood Products from 1975 to
2001, for example, in the posts of product manager, production
manager and development manager, thus having a remarkable effect on
the development, manufacturing and marketing of Kerto LVL products.
In his doctoral thesis published in 2005 Kairi researched the
development process of Kerto as an interactive process between the
research and development, and business operations. He has also
published several other writings connected to the field.

The sum of the Schweighofer Prize, nominated every second year, is
100,000 euros, and it is granted to innovations that can be counted
as milestones in the development of European forest industry and are
in industrial use.

Finnforest Kerto is a dimensionally stable beam and panel product
that has excellent strength properties. The product's innovativeness
is based on its versatile use in all construction and the constant
development of new usage applications in cooperation with customers.

The Schweighofer Prize was handed to Professor Matti Kairi on Monday
18 June 2007 in the City Hall of Vienna.
In addition to the main
prize, the Schweighofer Privatstiftung Beteiligungsverwaltung GmbH
foundation gave four separate innovation awards. The benefactor of
the Schweighofer Prize is Heinz Fischer,  the President of Austria.

The Schweighofer Prize's international panel of judges in 2007
included the chairman Alfred Teischinger (Institute of Wood Science
and Technology, BOKU), Bo Borgström (European Confederation of
Woodworking Industries  CEI-Bois), Georg Erlacher (Österreichische
Bundesforste AG), Josef Rettenmeier (Rettenmeier Holding AG), Manfred
Brandstätter (Holzforschung Austria) and Emeritus Professor Tero
Paajanen.