Made in Croatia

Mate Rimac and his company Rimac Automobili are continuing to succeed in placing Croatia somewhere else on the map outside of the sunshine and sea bubble. With his company having secured investment from the likes of Porsche, drawn the attention of Bugatti, and with him having drawn up a step by step plan to show the Croatian Government just how to actually attract investment and interest from the automotive industry, this unassuming man from Livno, Bosnia and Herzegovina, has become somewhat of a phenomenon. Rightly so. His super cars, the C_One and C_Two, are admired across the world, and they're…

September 8, 2019 - We are delighted to welcome Elizabeth Wilson to TCN, especially with a great first article on one of the treasures of continental Croatia, the honey goodness of OPG Franic. Welcome, Number 139! If you would like to write about the Croatia, Montenegro or Slovenia where you are, please contact us on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.   What is the future of Croatia? That question can attract infinite speculation, but according to Mirko Franić, a Croatian beekeeper with almost four decades of experience, it can’t be answered without looking first to the bees.  “What happens to the bees will happen to…

Mate Rimac is one of the more famous and much more positive entrepreneurial stories from Croatia. While setting up a business here is no easy feat, regardless of what you're doing, Mate Rimac's inspiring story of a curious child-turned-adult who never gave up despite the infamous red tape of the Croatian state is enough to put a smile on anyone's face. Echoing the great Nikola Tesla and having firmly placed Croatia on the map for something else other than tourism, sunshine and the Adriatic sea, Rimac's innovative ideas go from strength to strength. From incredible vehicles like the C_One and…

The Croatian finals of the RBA competition brought together seven innovative startups. As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 1st of September, 2019, the fastest growing Croatian startup, Electrocoin, has been in talks of an offer with largest cooperative bank in Austria and one of the largest banks in Southeast Europe, Raiffeisen Bank (RBA), to jointly launch a "cryptocurrency". The successful Croatian startup presented its service, known as PayCek, the first Croatian payment processor for cryptocurrencies at the Croatian finals of the Elevator Lab Challenge, organised for the first time in Zagreb by RBA and Startit. Vedran Vukelić of Electrocoin…

"This horseshoe-shaped nation doesn’t just produce good wines, but potentially great ones, and the wine world at large has yet to recognise this." He is one of the great promoters of Croatian wine and its winemakers, and leading Croatian wine writer Sasa Spiranec has continued his work in spreading news about Croatian wine excellence through a recent collaboration with the Financial Times on a recent tour of the wine regions of Croatia, which the newspaper reported on on August 30, 2019. The article, entitles Croatia's Best Wines by Andrew Jefford can be read here. The tour took in top wineries in…

The innovative SightRun application (app), provides navigation directions and an interesting ''story'' about the destination the runner is in via audio, and it's currently available in as many as eleven cities. As Poslovni Dnevnik/Native tim VL i PD writes on the 30th of August, 2019, everyone in love with running has some new challenges and added value in front of them with this healthy activity, thanks to the SightRun app. It was developed as part of the Startup Factory competition, and today, the app successfully brings together all lovers of this activity. Sandra Bortek, the founder of the initial idea…

The innovative Croatian Plate project is primarily based on molecular gastronomy, and only foods from Croatian OPGs are used. As Ivan Tominac/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 29th of August, 2019, a great many culinary connoisseurs have said that a true chef has undying persistence and a constant desire to learn more and more, and the young Croatian chef in this story is not only persistent and eager to learn, but also boasts an enviable entrepreneurial streak. Although only twenty years old, Dino Popović has already managed to become a chef and launch his own gastronomic project. As he notes, he…

Some varieties have already been harvested and although Croatian growers are struggling with labour shortages, the harvest will be finished by the end of September in Istria, Slavonia, and down in Dalmatia... As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marta Duic writes on the 29th of August, 2019, grape harvesting is about to begin in Croatia's prominent wine-growing regions, with some varieties having already been harvested in order to make quality domestic wine. In most Croatian regions, the yield is lower than it was last year, but winemakers have made sure to state that the quality still remains top notch this year. Oenologist Nika Silić…

As Sergej Novosel Vuckovic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 29th of August, 2019, although winter still seems somewhat far away, things are going full speed ahead at a Rijeka-based company to provide thousands of citizens and tourists across Croatia with one of their favourite activities for the advent period. They are the only ones in the country and in Croatia's immediate region who actually make skating rinks, design and realise every conceivable idea of ​​their clients, and they're leaning more and more towards exports. This Croatian company is the only ice rink creator in the entire country, namely, in this coastal…

As Novac/Matea Grbac writes on the 26th of August, 2019, a group of Franciscan monks have decided to dip their feet into the increasingly popular world of craft beer in Zagreb, and their income isn't going to be wasted selflessly... ''Back during my stay as a student in Germany I dreamed of producing monastery beer. It was a long time before I received 95 percent approval from my brothers for this venture,'' remembers the friar of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Zagreb, Tomislav Glavnik, who was behind the idea of ​​one of the first monastery craft beers in Croatia…