Is there a place for Croatian food on the competitive market of nearby Germany? It seems that yes, there is, and rich Croatian honey has already won the hearts of many German shoppers.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 1st of June, 2020, GoGreen, the brand of Croatia’s largest agricultural cluster and the first domestic smart market until three years ago, was taken over and reactivated in mid-March by the Zagreb-based company Anytime Logistika. In the new business, GoGreen is only part of the business. The main focus is on logistics, wholesale and exports.
Anytime Logistika has just done its first job for Germany’s largest retail chain, Edeka, which is 50 percent larger in Germany than Lidl and Kaufland combined and holds more than a fifth of the German market. Among other things, it placed Croatian food such as honey there. Alan Slapar, who started the GoGreen brand, and who is now working at Anytime Logistika on the development and digitalisation of domestic producers, says that Andrea Rukavina runs the business here in Croatia and Tomislav Hunic runs it over in Germany.
“The deal with Edeka was agreed upon by Tomislav Hunic, who lives and works in Germany, and who noted that all those there in the field, already present on the markets, find it easier to communicate with local procurement managers than even we from Croatia can,” said Slapar. He added that he is already working on other customers because the market for Croatian food and agricultural products in Germany really does exist.
Here in Croatia, the company is working to strengthen its storage capacity. Anytime Logistika currently has a warehouse in Sesvetski Kraljevec of 140 square metres in a cooling mode from 2 ° C to 6 ° C. However, they are also building a new one which will span a significantly larger 750 square metres and in which there will be a deep-freeze cooling regime of -18 ° C and a temperature of 12 ° C.
“The warehouse will be equipped for the quick freezing and packaging of fresh and seasonal fruits, and there will also be a special system for washed and sliced vegetables, such as already peeled and sliced potatoes, zucchini spaghetti, salads and such things,” explained Slapar.
They are also arranging warehouse and sales points in Zagreb and the surrounding area, but the emphasis is being placed primarily on wholesale. He stated that that is why they offered support to online stores, launched the HoReCa-Point sales channel for catering and decided on a precedent in Croatia. On the Anytime Logistika website, it will offer the possibility to order all products available in stock in real time.
“One of the basic problems in the distribution of agricultural products in Croatia is that producers don’t even have a catalog of their products so that wholesale or retail customers can even come to find out what they actually have to offer. And if the customers don’t know, then they won’t even bother ordering,” noted Slapar.
He stated that they are therefore working intensively on digitalisation with the Croatian producers they work with. Each manufacturer that enters their system also enters a catalog which they then offer on various markets depending on the product and their respective capacities. He pointed out that he wasn’t surprised that doing business that way has intensified over the past two months and that family farms have taken an interest in GoGreen yet again.
“I don’t attribute the interest so much to GoGreen as much as I do to the new chaos and hysteria, because Croatia hasn’t invested in more creative ways of distribution for years, and with the arrival of the new coronavirus and isolation measures, it proved to be a big issue for all companies,” explained Slapar.
Anytime Logistika currently has, he said, even better collaboration with larger manufacturers than it has with smaller ones. He explained that this is the result of a market shock.
“Because of these sudden market declines, now ‘everything is possible”, ”everyone is good” and there is potential in everything,” Slapar concluded.
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