As Zlatko Simic/Novac writes on the 17th of June, 2020, Dalibor Kezele (45) has been working as the director of the agricultural sector in Podravka since the beginning of this year. He was born in Koprivnica and graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb in 1998. Quite logically so, he got a job at the much loved Croatian company Podravka.
After fourteen years of gaining experience in Serbia, Montenegro and the Czech Republic, he returned to Koprivnica in 2017 to take up the position of director of the Food Business Programme, being put in charge of categories such as fruits, vegetables and other Podravka products.
Many years of experience in marketing and management positions haven't gone unnoticed in the profession, and Dalibor became the president of the Association of the Food Industry and Agriculture and a member of the Association of Food Processing Industry at the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK).
The coronavirus crisis is behind us. What situation did you find in your fields at the beginning?
Vegetables such as peas, beets, eggplant and tomatoes are fully provided from domestic fields. Most other vegetables must be imported in a certain percentage, such as cucumbers, pepperoni and peppers. For the last few years, our goal has been to provide these vegetables (peppers, cucumbers, pepperoni) that aren't entirely domestic from Croatian fields through the encouragement and development of family farms. We know that domestic raw materials are of the highest quality and are the most favourable because the whole production process is supervised and controlled by Podravka.
What has changed since the crisis began?
Unfortunately, the coronavirus crisis has shown us the importance of domestic raw materials and domestic production. During this crisis, we embarked more intensively on a promotional campaign towards farmers who are engaged or who want to engage in vegetable production, with a special focus on cucumbers, peppers and pepperoni. We encourage the production of these vegetables by stimulating purchase prices, lending to agricultural production, education, and we offer assistance during their production.
In what way do you work on connecting small producers to ones such as yourselves, the big ones?
In order to develop domestic agriculture and stop deruralisation, it's necessary to support small producers who can't compete with producers and processors like the large ones, and connecting small family farms with large producers is necessary to improve their productivity. That's why, in the last few years, we've been trying to strengthen our cooperation with existing subcontractors, but also to encourage new farmers to decide to produce vegetables for Podravka, all in order to provide as many vegetables from Croatian fields as possible.
What do you offer them to encourage them to produce vegetables for Podravka?
We offer them professional assistance during the entire vegetation period, from sowing to harvest, we educate them, we offer them the possibility of lending with seeds, seedlings and raw materials, and stimulating purchase prices. The average Podravka producer of, for example, cucumber or pepperoni, is a small family farm of a family of four that produces this vegetable on an area of 1000 to 2000 m2, which requires labour-intensive production. Therefore, our goal is to keep, encourage and be available to these small producers in every respect. Our production organisers are at their disposal and they will purchase the vegetables from them directly from the field.
What's so special about the vegetables that are produced for processing in Podravka?
Systematic care for the production of quality raw materials has been carried out by Podravka for many years now, and it begins with the creation of varieties of top quality which have adapted for cultivation in the local area. Therefore, any variety must undergo at least three years of quality and adaptation testing to local production conditions before any commercial production. Thus, the red peppers that Podravka uses for the production of ajvar are the result of many years of work and research by Podravka's agronomists.
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