As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marta Duic writes, Zvonimir Kalic, a young farmer from Djakovo, took over his family farm a few years ago, and today it produces about 30 products based on hemp, which is grown across 20 hectares of land. After entering the Start Croatia project and following orders having come in from the Spar Croatia retail chain, 2,000 pieces of his Croaticanna bio oil, which is based on hemp, arrived to the shelves of Spar stores.
This entrepreneurial story started when the Kalic family, due to the illness of one of their family members, started the planned cultivation of hemp and seed production, and today four family members are involved in the business. Zvonimir later inherited the family farm, further educated himself and created Croaticanna bio oil, which is created by cold pressing hemp seeds.
From the start, they decided to head in the direction of organic production, and the quality of Croaticanna bio oil is confirmed by three certificates and a guarantee stamp – Living Healthy as an indicator of low salt and saturated fatty acids and Bio and Vegan labels.
”Although the yields in organic production are slightly lower, in the first year we had ten tonnes of seeds on only eight hectares of land and we were awarded for the highest ecological yield as a small family farm, which put a spring in our step and provided an incentive,” Zvonimir explained.
Croaticanna products are obtained mainly by hand, and the mission of this young farmer is to keep the path “from the field to the table” as short as possible, guaranteeing a quality product that is not harmful to the environment.
As Kalic revealed, the processing plant is located in Vrpolje, on the property of his late grandfather, and their last investment was in equipping the plant. Their investments do not stop there either, and the next step is the purchase of tea processing machines, for which they plan to withdraw funds from EU funds. In addition to their popular Croaticanna bio oil, their range includes about 30 products, from flour, protein and seeds to tea and honey with hemp and cosmetics.
”This is the first major step out onto the market for us and we believe that our other products will be on the shelves of Spar Croatia in the near future. So far, we’ve had sales on the doorstep and we’ve also sold our products at events and fairs. In the first year of business, we visited a hundred Croatian cities and events, and thanks to the cooperation with the Croatian Chamber of Commerce we had the opportunity to present our business and products at fairs in foreign markets such as Germany and Hungary,” says Kalic.
Kalic recognised the opportunity to improve his products through the “Start Croatia” project, launched by Spar Croatia and Nova TV to help innovative entrepreneurs and startups place their products on the shelves of large retail chains. In addition to the expert team of Spar Croatia, Kalic collected documentation and certificates for the environmental supervisory body and harmonised his OPG’s production process with the very strict requirements to make such placement possible. As part of the project, Zvonimir is also fighting for the title of Hit Product in 2022, along with seven other candidates.
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