After ten years of hard work, international success seems near.
Danijel Sinković, the owner of a small family farm from Bedekovčina in the Zagorje region, grows pumpkins on 26 hectares of land. He also processes them, and he will soon open a plant for producing pumpkin oil, which will complete the comprehensive production process, reports Poslovni.hr on January 3, 2018.
Sinković expects to produce about 3,000 litres of pumpkin oil this year. He explains that there are two ways of processing seeds into oil, a cold processing which is of high quality and expensive, and a warm process which is also very demanding.
“We have been growing pumpkins for ten years, and the whole family has been involved in the business. When the volume of work in the field increases in spring or autumn, we employ students to work from all over Croatia. We started with just a half of hectare of land, but we have been increasing production every year, and today, if we take into account pumpkins and other plants, we have about 30 hectares of land,” says Sinković.
They have their own shop at the Westgate Shopping Centre near Zaprešić, and their products can be found at specialised stores, and are also delivered as ordered.
They have expanded their range of products every year, and it now includes products such as pumpkin seed spread, pumpkin flour, maize flour, buckwheat flour and rye flour. However, their most popular product is still the pumpkin seed oil. Part of production is covered by their subcontractors who have their support in production throughout the year.
“All this has resulted in the high-quality pumpkin oil, which has been ranked among the top three in northwestern Croatia for the past four years. We are proud owners of two gold, three silver and two bronze medals from pumpkin oil exhibitions. These awards have greatly influenced our sales. We put in the Croatian market between 3,000 and 4,000 litres of oil each year,” says Sinković, adding that they are currently in negotiation to enter the international markets as well, particularly in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. “This will be a significant step forward in our production, and we will have to increase the number of subcontractors in order to cover these markets,” explains Sinković.
In addition to pumpkins, Sinković’s family farm also produces vegetables – peppers, cucumbers, eggplants and tomatoes. They also cooperate with Podravka, which buys cucumbers from them.
“Vegetables cover several hectares of land, and all the surplus which is left is sold as pickled vegetables. If demand grows, we’ll increase production and employ additional people,” Sinković says.
Translated from Poslovni.hr.
