The Romanian food industry is starting to sell its own products on foreign markets and helping to reduce the trade deficit in food products, which has been increasing year after year.
Milk industry group LaDorna, which is owned by businessman Jean Valvis, will export more than 8 million euros' worth of organic products to Greek and UK markets this year after receiving certification from international authorities.
"We will export organic milk and Swiss cheese mainly branded as LaDorna. This is the first time a Romanian food industry product will be released internationally under its own brand. The Dorna brand is very well known on the Greek market, where Dorna mineral water became number two three years ago before I sold my business to Coca Cola (a 39 million-euro deal)," said Jean Valvis, the group's chairman.
The company is the first producer to export organic milk to the Greek market. "The European market for organic products is constantly increasing, with suppliers unable to meet demand. This is a very big opportunity for the Romanian food industry," said Valvis.
Romanian exports of organic products amounted to about 20 million euros last year and largely consisted of raw materials and not value added products. However, Romania's trade deficit in terms of food products is widening by the year. The top exported products are livestock and raw materials.
LaDorna has completed an investment to build 50 organic livestock farms, and will begin a similar investment in 125 such farms this year worth nearly 14 million euros, according to an announcement.
"We achieved great success with those farms so we decided to go on with this type of investment on a much larger scale. If we do not consolidate our livestock farming sector, we will end up like Greece or Italy, which did not negotiate a milk quota sufficient to cover domestic consumption and are now finding themselves forced to import huge amounts from Germany and Austria," explained Valvis. The net benefits for a farmer joining the eurofarm programme started by LaDorna is 500 euros/month in addition to 1,400 euros/month as soon as the farm is paid of after an average of six years. stelian.negrea@zf.ro
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