January the 5th, 2022 - The Croatian meat processing company Buretic bregi is no stranger to a medal or three, and this location on the very edge of the gorgeous Ucka Nature Park is set to open a tasting room for visitors.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marta Duic writes, Buretic bregi, from Bregi on the edge of the Ucka Nature Park, took home three gold medals for its sausages with olives, truffles and rosemary at the first Days of Croatian Sausages and Salamis, recently held in Sveti Petar u Sumi.
The foundations of this company, which has been operating for twenty years now, are based on a tradition passed down from generation to generation, and today, Buretic bregi boasts eleven employees.
“The business year was very satisfactory, and in accordance with the possibilities, we delivered to the market as much as our capacities allowed. We currently have about twenty different products, several new ones made from turkey breast meat such as hot dogs, smoked turkey breasts as whole pieces, products made from boskarin, along with our already well known sausages with truffles, rosemary, olives and boskarin or Cres lamb pate,'' explained Dalibor Buretic who continued his centuries-old family tradition of breeding and production on the picturesque slopes of Ucka.
A growing list of partners
Buretic bregi are mostly present in Kvarner, more precisely in Rijeka and Opatija, followed by Istria, the nearby islands of Krk, Cres, Losinj, Rab, Pag, down in Dalmatia and in Zagreb and the surrounding areas, and their list of partners includes a number of hotels and restaurants.
“Hotel companies such as Jadranka Tourism, Valamar Riviera, Milenij Hotels, Liburnia Riviera Hotels and Navis and Ikador in Opatija, Stancija Meneghetti Bale, Jadran Rijeka, Jadran Crikvenica, the latest being Hilton Rijeka and many private restaurants of a slightly higher class are all partners of ours. Our products can also be found on the shelves of Lidl, as part of their line called ''Tastes of the Homeland'', in all major Konzum stores and in Metro Hrvatska. We're proud that our quality has been recognised by large and serious chains, as well as less specialised delicatessen stores, as they're still our main partners,'' revealed Buretic bregi's boss.
Their best-selling products are their Istrian sausages for cooking or baking, their dry sausages, and they are increasingly selling cooked prosciutto and ham. Exports brought them ten percent of their turnover last year, in neighbouring Slovenia their biggest customer is the Aldi Group, ie Hofer Slovenia, they also have partners in Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, and in Germany they have started negotiations with one very large distributor.
"We're happy that domestic pigs are being bred on our family farm in my father Mladen's hometown, in Boljunsko Polje, and we're also cooperating with breeders from Istria, the surroundings of Zagreb and Slavonia, as well as with those from the border area of Slovenia. They have discipline and adhere to all of the hygienic principles in keeping and feeding the animals, so we get safe and tasty food. The cooperation with the Agricultural Cooperative and the Cres butcher's shop in the procurement of lamb and sheep meat is also special to us,'' explained Buretic.
Tradition and innovation as one
The last investments were for new machines in production and equipment for drying and maturing meat in natural controlled conditions, and they will continue in this way throughout 2022.
“Our plan is to build a representative production and tourist facility where we would organise tourist-oriented tours where visitors could see and learn more about the origin and method of production of our delicacies. We'd also place a tasting room in the facility where you'd be able to properly taste our products and learn how to prepare/serve them in a traditional or innovative way. Recently, we've received a lot of inquiries from all tourist boards and hotel companies for the guided visits of their guests,'' concluded Dalibor Buretic.
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