April the 23rd, 2021 - The Queen Cow milk brand (Kravica kraljica) is the newest Croatian milk brand to come out of a successful year for the Osijek Belje factory which managed to retain most of its workforce despite the economic woes caused by the pandemic.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, if you've been following the business news in Croatia you'll likely recall that not so long ago, a relatively well known company called Belje took over the Osijek-based Meggle dairy factory, managing to keep hold of about 250 subcontractors and about 90 employees, according to a report from Danica.hr.

The factory was successfully saved during turbulent times for all and even started producing something new, the aforementioned Queen Cow milk brand (Kravica kraljica). This week, this new Croatian milk finally hit the shelves of numerous stores.

Belje Plus CEO Andrej Dean also revealed recently that it is "the only one in Croatia that has more than 4,000 cows in its own production, thus providing more than 35 million litres of milk to the public from its own sources.''

In addition, the company Vupik from the wider Fortenova Group (formerly Agrokor) produces an additional 12 million litres, and with another 13 million litres from subcontractors, meaning that they have a total of more than 58 million litres of milk per year.

This also means that Belje's other products, such as their popular cheeses and spreads, are made one hundred percent from Croatian milk. The Osijek Belje factory is now busy and planning new investments worth 10 million euros.

To briefly recall, Belje took over the factory in Osijek at the end of last year because Meggle decided to withdraw from the Republic of Croatia. Before announcing its departure, Meggle had about 270 subcontractors and about 160 employees.

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