Esko Pesonen has had a long career at Dieta. He joined the company in 1996, a few years after Dieta was founded, and has remained on that path to this day. Admittedly, Esko took a well-deserved retirement in 2020, but since then, he's been making regularly irregular appearances at the Dieta's factory, both for shorter and longer periods.
Esko's journey with Dieta has been a very varied one. He is skilled in procurement, sales, as well as design. By the way, did you know that Dieta's three-part mixing tool was originally designed by Esko?
Esko still enjoys his work even in retirement
Although Esko retired in 2020, he still works at Dietatec's kettle factory.
"I work occasionally and as needed. Sometimes I may only work a couple of shifts a week and sometimes I may regularly work for several weeks in a row," says Esko.
At the moment, he mainly works with a mix of design and supply chain tasks, but he may occasionally jump in to help out elsewhere in the house when needed. It's easy, as Esko has years of in-house experience in a various of different jobs.
One job, many roles - 25 years at Dieta
When Esko started his career at Dieta, he joined the company as a professional kitchen designer. It has not remained Esko's only job description, since within the same workplace there have been many different jobs for a keen person over the years.
"It's much more pleasant to start a new task in an old job than in a completely new one. The fact that you know the people and get a completely different kind of support for your work has made a big difference. At Dieta and later Dietatec, this has been successful."
From kitchen layout designer, Esko's job description expanded, and he started to be involved in sales negotiations, among other things. From there when the design work ended, the focus shifted to quotations.
"The variety has been good. For example, when I moved from design to sales, I particularly liked the time I spent with customers," says Esko.
After quotation Esko's path led him back to design, but this time to the production side. He enjoyed his time in production planning for a long time until he felt he had done all he could. This is not to say, of course, that the design work did not bear fruit: Esko played an important role in the creation of the three-part mixing tool and the invention of the scale feature of kettles, among other things.
From design, the door opened to the supply chain and purchasing of mechanical parts, where Esko spent his time almost until his retirement - except for a brief return to production design before retirement.
A three-part tool gets created on the way home
In the past, Dieta's kettles were top-mixing. However, the market was changing, and with the change came the requirement to have a mixer at the bottom of the kettle. The task to design the new bottom mixer came to Esko's desk.
"In the first version, the center axis and mixer tool ended up being really large and heavy. At that time, I often used to walk to work, even though the distance between home and work was closer to 10 kilometers. I still remember thinking on the way home about the size of the mixer and how on earth, for example, anyone smaller could lift it out of the kettle - it really took strength. That's when the idea came to me: what if we only removed the side parts from the mixer?", Esko recalls the moment.
Esko proposed his idea to his superiors and promised to find a solution to implement it. And when he did, the result was so stunning that a patent was applied for. The patent came through and the three-part tool was born.
Developing the design process takes continuous work
The great invention wasn’t only put on display, but it was developed further. More tools were invented to be mounted on the central axis - for different applications and different customers. Nowadays, the universal tool is accompanied by a whisker, a mixing hook, a folding tool, and a washing tool.
"When designing, you have to keep up with the times, you have to invent something new now and then. I've always thought that if in some other application something works, soon it will work at least as well here", Esko says.
Esko has also noted that collaboration is important in design work. It is important to get new insights from new people and to have a pair of eyes looking at your work from time to time. At Dietatec, the design team listens to each other, puts forward views, and brainstorms - solutions are best found together.
If you found Esko's introduction interesting, get to know our other personnel too:
Ville-Veikko Litmanen started as Dietatec’s Managing Director Read the blog >
Partners' success is the most important thing to Key Account Manager Anna Simojoki Read the blog >
From a kitchen professional to a sales expert - Nina knows the catering business Read the blog >
Dieta Chef Vesa Saaristo Read more >
Aki solves technical challenges for Partners Read the blog >
Production Manager Harri Tanttu has kept up with Dieta since 1994 Read the blog >
Mari makes handmade kettles to be sent around the world Read the blog >
