Bjelovar breaks the mold and creates a unique fitness product that has caught the eye of not only the nearby Hungarians, but the world.

Continental Croatia is, aside from its tourism potential, usually in the news for all the wrong reasons. Although it has gradually started to spread, the Croatian demographic crisis has bitten harder in that area of the country than it has elsewhere, and with residents leaving in their droves, it often comes as a pleasant surprise to read about innovatation and opportunities arising from there, despite the fact that there are several.

As Goran Jungvirth/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of February, 2019, the winner in the category of best project idea at the first Bjelovar Startup 2018 competition confirmed to Poslovni Dnevnik that the prototype of their product is ready, and that it has attracted the interest of people from all over the world.

"We've already had over twenty queries, and our partners from Hungary have just visited us. The whole world is interested in our product,'' said Vedran Presečki from Ferrodus d.o.o., the creator of a non-motorised running belt with a ferrofluid brake.

His company has been in existence since back in 2013 and produces fitness equipment which is then exported to many countries across the world, not only to other European countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and France, but further afield and across the Atlantic, all the way to the United States.

Otherwise, this Bjelovar-made product is the very first non-motorised running beld with a ferrofluid brake in the entire world. Despite that fact which is already impressive enough, Ferrodus' innovative Vedran Presečki plans to conquer the whole world with this new invention.

"The fitness industry is continuing to grow steadily. Our "Predator Hunt" running belt is the first in the world which uses ferrofluid technology, and it's unique owing to that. Running on it is natural, it's as if you were running on an embankment. Existing running belts (such as common treadmills) don't boast that natural resistance and don't allow for the alteration of running intensity like our belt does,'' stated a rightfully proud Presečki for Poslovni Dnevnik upon describing the uniqueness of this Bjelovar-made product.

After applying this technology to the running belt, Presečki is planning to extend it yet further, to other fitness related products such as bicycles and the like.

To brieflt recall, Presečki won last year's Bjelovar-based competition, which gained him a very welcome 100,000 kuna cash. This year, that same competition will open once again for startups that are working to produce innovations in the area of ​​Bjelovar.

Presečki told Poslovni Dnevnik that his award helped him greatly in terms of product development, especially in speeding up the development of prototypes, which is of crucial importance for the overcoming of potential competitors who came up with the same idea.

"We accelerated and definitely managed to get a one-year head start owing to this award, because we're a small company," he noted.

But Presečki emphasised the fact that his prize meant more than just money because it meant recognition and brought about great enthusiasm for his team.

"That was a great incentive for us," he said.

The Bjelovar company exports 90 percent of its products and currently has just three employees, but it will need a lot more man power when launching its totally unique running belt production.

"We have a recruitment plan for when the product goes to the market. We'll have to substantially reorganise the business,'' Presečki stated, for whom, despite gaining some truly invaluable business experience, the real work is yet to come.

Make sure to stay up to date with Croatian companies, products and services, doing business in Croatia and much more by following our dedicated Made in Croatia and business pages.

Click here for the original article by Goran Jungvirth for Poslovni Dnevnik

They left their former jobs, took out all the savings and started their business. This is the beginning of the story about D3Stooges3D, a small printing studio hidden on the ground floor of one of the buildings in Novi Zagreb, where four friends print everything customers ask them, from animal figures and characters from movies and video games to cups, pods, soap holders, earrings. And they are doing great, reports Večernji List on February 13, 2019.

“It started four years ago when our father put together a 3D printer because he wanted to work on aeroplanes models,” said the brothers Daniel and Luke Kirin, remembering how they first got interested in the technology. They were joined by their friends, also brothers Ivan and Filip Ormuž. They bought drawing tablets for one hundred euros and started to improvise. They downloaded models from the internet and printed them as a test, but soon they started making their own.

“We printed everything we could think of. Sometimes we would succeed, sometimes not. For example, a longboard shaft we designed for ourselves got completely stuck to the table,” explained Luka.

After some time, they received an offer for a larger project, 400 casings for TV sets. They went into the "unknown", as they say, but the job turned out well, and they earned good money. And so, they decided to devote themselves to business more seriously. “We said ‘let's try it,’ took out all our savings and started the company,” Daniel described.

Now they have five printers, four with the FDM technology and one with the DLP technology, each costing between 1,000 and 2,000 euros. The design process begins with receiving the order, and besides the printing, the guys also design and process the finished items. They work with the resin as well, and they started improvising with ceramics. They are currently creating a 40-part Volkswagen van replica that will serve as a gramophone records shelf.

“We are never bored since clients order different things. The price of a product ranges from 50 kuna for simpler pendants, up to tens of thousands of kuna for more demanding projects. The most expensive one was the decoration for a shop window near Makarska. It took us a month to do it,” they said.

They have also had several international projects, and they plan over time to expand to the overseas market. “The 3D printing is still relatively unknown and underdeveloped, but people abroad recognise its potential much more. For the time being, in Croatia it is mostly used in medicine, for example, for artificial hips, while creative printing like we do is almost non-existent,” said Ivan.

All four believe they had not made a mistake when they decided to launch D3Stooges3D. “We are doing what we love; this is a creative job, and it is always interesting, and if one can live from it than it is a perfect combination,” the team from Zapruđe concluded.

Translated from Večernji List (reported by Jelena Pišonić Babić).

More news on Croatian entrepreneurs can be found in the Made in Croatia section.

February 11, 2019 — In this article of the Made in Croatia series, learn more about Slavonski kulen, the protected pork sausage from Slavonia.

Slavonian kulen or kulin is by far the best-known delicacy of eastern Croatian cuisine. Also, not only in Slavonia but all across Croatia, kulen is the most prestigious as well as most expensive sausage-type product.

This cured sausage made with premium pork cuts is heavily flavored with red paprika and garlic; it exudes a strong smoky aroma and has a rather piquant flavor. According to strict production rules, Slavonian kulen must be produced using the meat of pigs that have been raised in Slavonia whereas the most sought-after breeds include the black Slavonian pig and Mangulica. The animals are raised free-range and fed organically on corn, barley, and oats.

Kulen sausages are produced every year between the beginning of November and the end of March. Once they're made, the sausages are traditionally cured and smoked over beechwood for at least several months which is followed by a longstanding Slavonian tradition of enjoying kulen at Easter. However, kulen is also an essential part of other festive holiday spreads.

Kulen pairs well with mildly flavored cheeses and lighter red wines. If you happen to find yourself near Požega in June, don't miss the annual Požega kulenijada which is the oldest Slavonian festival and kulen makers' competition. As of November 2017, Slavonski kulen has been registered as a food product with a Protected Geographical Indication.

If you'd like to know more about protected Croatian food products, make sure you're following TCN's dedicated gourmet page.

February 11, 2019 — In this article of the Made in Croatia series, learn more about meso 'z tiblice, the protected cured pork meat product from Međimurje, the northernmost part of Croatia.

Međimursko meso 'z tiblice is not only a centuries-old regional specialty but also a meat preserving method. Meso 'z tiblice is made with premium pork cuts which are first salt-cured, then either cooked or baked and lastly preserved in minced lard seasoned with bay leaves and peppercorns.

Prepared that way, the meat was traditionally stored in a wooden firkin called tiblica or lojdrica; hence the name. Coated in lard like that, the meat is left to mature in wooden firkins for at least 45 days, and that way it retains its natural juices.

Međimursko meso 'z tiblice is typically enjoyed in thick slices, and traditionally served as a cold appetizer, sided with the peppery tiblica lard spread over country-style sourdough bread.

An integral part of Croatian national cuisine, meso 'z tiblice has to this day remained the most popular gastronomic specialty in Međimurje. As of November 2017, it has been registered as the 18th Croatian food product with a Protected Geographical Indication.

If you'd like to know more about protected Croatian products, make sure you're following TCN's dedicated gourmet page.

In the world of chocolate there used to be white, milk and dark chocolate, but in 2017 a new kind of chocolate first appeared. That is the ruby chocolate, which is currently available in just a few countries, and one of them will soon be Croatia, reports Poslovni.hr on February 6, 2019.

“We are among the countries which always follow trends in chocolates, which also confirms our credibility as a Mediterranean country that is quite diverse in flavours,” says Fran Reizl, the creative director and production manager at Vrsna from Sesvete. He has been involved in the food production business for the last 15 years, and since 2017 he has owned the Vrsna Chocolates brand.

His company is about to bring to Croatia something entirely new – ruby chocolate. “We use a special process of separating cocoa seeds and a special fermentation to preserve the natural colour of cocoa, which is a tropical fruit of a rose-ruby colour. The name ruby comes from the association between the precious stone ruby and the colour of the chocolate. The taste is specific due to the presence of citric aromas. Cocoa is a fruit with elements of grape and lemon flavours,” explains Reizl.

The new kind of chocolate will be presented at the 2019 Gast international fair in Split in two weeks, after which you will be able to find the chocolate in delicacy stores around the country, but also in Vienna and Stuttgart and at the company’s web shop.

“We will have two product categories; one will be Ruby Chocolate while the other will be Ruby Raspberry and Pistachio. As a company that wants to export the Croatian products beyond the borders of our country, we will try to establish a marketing contact in the most widely-used language of the world, while on the back of our Ruby Chocolate there will be information that it is a Croatian product, along with Croatian red and white chequered squares,” said the entrepreneur.

More news about Croatian food can be found in the Lifestyle section.

Translated from Poslovni.hr (reported by Lucija Špiljak).

As Bojana Mrvos Pavic/Novi List writes on the 2nd of February, 2019, Zagreb's VeeMee connects customers and manufacturers over a platform where, by scanning a QR code on a product, the buyer can see all the information about the producer that interests them - who he is, how many hectares he is working on to produce his own food. That is, the customer can see whether or not what they're holding in their hands is truly authentic.

He may only be 31 years old, but he has many more good business ideas that, without exaggeration, could save the world - Marko Kozjak from Zagreb goes through life preventing food wastage and working towards having a "zero waste" future in which there will no longer be wasted food, or at the very least not so much of it.

Each of us, on average, throws away 75 kilograms of food per year into the trash - these are the alarming results of the research recently carried out by dr.sc. Branka Ilakovac. We mostly throw away fruits and vegetables, but also milk and dairy products, according to her research. How much food, however, is being discarded by chain stores, purely because of the smallest mistakes in packaging, the look of the food or other superficial defects, is difficult to imagine for the average consumer.

Tons of food is either returned to producers or taken to be thrown away, for example, if some tomatoes end up being damaged ​​during the delivery process, or if every tenth mango is too small - such cases see the whole consignment become a collateral victim and it is simply thrown away. This is a huge amount of food that is perfectly fine for human consumption.

Kozjak, who established the Zagreb-based VeeMee company with his partner Nikola Vida, is saving food from being needlessly thrown away. The company has saved more than a hundred tonnes of food over the last six months, and even prevented the dispersement of twelve tonnes of CO2, which would otherwise have ended up in our atmosphere.

Kozjak told Novi List at his office at the Technology Park in Zagreb, that when he finished "Tesla", the Central Technical School in Zagreb, he had already developed some projects for which there was unfortunately never any money to realise.

"Then, back in my younger days I took Nietzsche in my hands and fell in love with philosophy, and then completed philosophy and religiology. After graduating from the faculty, because I was always interested in sales and negotiation, I ended up selling fruit and vegetables, I was an assistant to the manager at one, and then a director at another company. I got to know all the holes in the system - from procurement problems, over freight, to logistics, and I decided to start a company that will repair that,'' stated Marko.

He has already succeeded, though many say they initially expected him not to. He has developed a food rescue system, but VeeMee (Vi-Mi), as its name suggests, is doing something very useful indeed - it connects customers and manufacturers over a platform where by scanning the QR code on the product, the buyer can see all the information on the producer - who the producer is, how many hectares they have, and how they produce their own food.

Thus, the customer can check a product's authenticity. Up to 1,100 Croatian OPGs and other producers are connected to the platform at the moment, meaning the sources of their products are guaranteed, and the customer can, if they want to, even visit the OPG and see for themselves where the food they're buying and eating comes from.

The story continues with another important segment of this Zagreb-made business - saving edible and decent food from being carelessly and needlessly thrown away.

''When some products arrive at the factory of a shopping centre from their producers, due to a certain mistake, everything will end up being returned to the manufacturer, or it will be sent to be thrown away - in 70 percent of cases this is because of a packaging error, or because of a LOT print error. Similarly, in 30 percent of cases, it's due to some irregularities on the goods themselves, for example, due to a small part of the goods having been stolen and the like.

This doen't mean that it isn't good food, but that part of a delivery, two to three percent of the goods, has endured some damage, and the whole truck, as well as the damaged goods, will be returned to the manufacturer. It will be thrown away. We're in contact with producers, primarily for imported goods, because in Croatia this system is not yet sufficiently recognised, and we take the goods to our partner's warehouse.

We either repackage it, if it's a packaging problem, we correct any printing mistakes - we mostly do whatever it takes to deliver it in compliance with the law, and send it to the stores within the next 24 hours. If there is a product with more significant damage, and it's clear to us that returning it to a store would take longer than a day, then we sell it to food outlets or to wholesalers,'' explained Marko.

So far, in just six months of active work, Zagreb's VeeMee has saved about 90 percent of such goods, which are "repaired", sent to stores or to food outlets, or to wholesale markets. The third option is to divide the goods if there is no other solution, or there are no buyers for it, and yet someone still wants it.

Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia page for much more. If it's just Zagreb you're interested in, give Total Zagreb a follow.

Click here for the original article by Bojana Mrvos Pavic for Novi List

With more and more Croatian brands earning international respect, the founder and owner of the Croatian brand Carwiz reveals his plans to set Croatia's newest rent-a-car company on the path of the global market through franchises already agreed with five European countries.

As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 28th of January, 2019, the newest car rental service in Croatia, Carwiz, is also the first to start a franchise business outside of the Republic of Croatia, with ambitious plans for the coming three years to be present on at least twenty markets across different parts of Europe, as well as in Africa and Asia.

At a recent press conference, the first five markets the Croatian brand Carwiz will take to this year were revealed, and Poslovni Dnevnik got to hear all the details of this important move and the current situation on the domestic market, which were revealed by Krešimir Dobrilović, the founder of the completely Croatian brand Carwiz, who has been in this business almost twenty years.

Which are the first markets you plan to go to with the franchise, and how have you decided on such a step?

I've been in this business for a long time and with the Carwiz project, I've been trying to apply all of my acquired knowledge, experience, and my business relationships, but also introduce an innovative approach, and the emergence of the global market is in line with such thinking.

I have significant support from the team we've gathered together for Carwiz there, and in 2018 we began to develop a franchise business in cooperation with partners who are already doing car rentals, but have the ambition to make a step forward in their business as well as increase their traffic. At this time, we have five signed franchise agreements with partners from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Serbia, Latvia, and Cyprus.

How does your model differ from those already on the market and what do you offer to your partners?

All models in Croatia are imported franchises, and our concept has been fully developed in Croatia, in cooperation with our team and our partners such as Vip Data who have developed our software. With this front desk product, the company which will be ''under our cap'' will also have a website, a main one and a local one, as well as a brand with the entire brand book and everything that goes with it, from the standard look to employee uniforms.

However, it's crucial that, with the whole philosophy of our business, we get access to our foreign partners who will fill up the reservations.

That was the key step in the preparation of this project. It was crucial to find out how much foreign partners are willing to accompany the realisation. That's why we've carried out research and received extremely positive feedback from all the partners we're working with.

Why is cooperation with foreign partners so important, and why do they need you to get that approach?

This [foreign] cooperation is very important because there are a number of good rent-a-car companies that can't make a breakthrough to the largest number of bookings, which can only be achieved in cooperation with global online partners, which makes up about 80 percent of our business. It isn't the case that just anyone can go to Rentalcars [website] and just ask them to put them on their web platform. Building trust with such partners takes a long time and is demanding.

Through all the projects I've been through, I've continued to build the relationship that we're continuing on with Carwiz, and that's the strongest asset we can offer through the franchise. Carwiz is, on the Rentalcars site and on the American website Autoeurope, recognised as the best rent-a-car in Croatia. That's what we want to convey to our franchise partners. In addition, we offer them a price strategy, a fleet strategy, plans, tracking, and so on. Moreover, at least in these close markets such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, we'll also be able to help our partners with the purchase of vehicles.

How did you find partners? Can we expect any further franchise expansion?

So far, they've mainly been finding us. We're additionally teamed up for a stronger search for new partners, but we're careful about who we give the franchise to.

We check companies and their business, so we have refused some of them. This involves different markets, from Greece, which thanks to tourism has a highly developed fleet market of about ten thousand vehicles, to Latvia which isn't as developed tourism-wise as Greece is, but offers other aspects of opportunities with significantly smaller fleet vehicles.

By the end of the first quarter of the current year, we will finalise the signing of agreements with partners in Morocco, Romania, and Kosovo, and we plan to be present with our brand in more than twenty countries over the next three years.

How realistic is the prospect of doing that?

We saw that it's very realistic last year at the WTM London Tourism Fair, where we were the first Croatian rent-a-car brand to have our own stand. We talked with potential partners from a total of nineteen countries, including Morocco, Poland, Vietnam, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Brazil... I believe that in a year's time, we could close the complete Baltic region, we also have indications for Russia.

What are your plans for this year with regard to new investments?

We concluded 2018 with 48 million kuna in revenue, with a profit of around 600,000 kuna, which would have been even bigger without the major investments [we carried out] in business development, primarily for the franchises. This step, along with the increase in the number of fleets, should increase this year's [revenue] to more than 65 million kuna, with a projected profit of about 3 million kuna.

Because of that, we want to increase the availability of our services in continental cities, our fleet is fairly large in the winter, consisting of more than 600 cars. During peak season last year we had 1,400 vehicles, and for this year we plan to have about 2,000 cars operating during the summer months. Therefore, we're planning new employment, and we expect to reach over 80 employees in the peak season.

Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia and business pages for more on Croatian products and services, Croatian companies, Croatian brands and much more.

Click here for the original article by Marija Crnjak for Poslovni Dnevnik

The weather is foggy, it is hard to see, and drivers are driving too fast. Brother and sister Tihomir and Tihana Jurić have seen too many traffic accidents in which pedestrians are injured precisely because of such weather conditions, so they decided to act to put an end to it. The result of their efforts to make traffic safer is the Zebra Cross, a "smart armour” that is mounted on the pillars next to pedestrian crossings and uses lights to alert drivers that someone is trying to cross the road, reports Večernji List on January 20, 2019.

"Yes, the system works even when there is fog, snow or darkness, whenever the pedestrian is trying to cross the road but cannot be easily seen for some reason,” explains Tihomir Jurić. With their invention, the team, which also includes Alen Skorić and Matteo Vit, applied to the Zagreb Startup Factory and in December won the first prize worth 160,000 kuna.

“Drivers often cannot see pedestrians, even when the weather is fine. It is in the drivers’ interest to protect the pedestrians, and we have decided to do something that will help them,” explain the brother and sister.

The “smart armour” is mounted on the pillar and has built-in sensors that respond to pedestrians. The post then illuminates the pedestrian, and at the same time turn on the flickering lights that are facing the oncoming cars. They have the fog lights, which can reach the drivers even when the visibility is at its worst. Thus, the lights warn the cars that someone will cross the road and that they should stop.

"Of course, some drivers do not stop even when they see someone standing on a pedestrian crossing, but we cannot teach them the rules of the road. We can only hope that drivers will stop and protect pedestrians,” says Vit, who is in charge of all the software and hardware components of the Zebra Cross.

All team members are entrepreneurs in the IT sector, and they worked on the Zebra Cross alongside other jobs in their companies; however, they recently decided to leave everything and dedicate themselves to the joint project. They are already negotiating with the Zagreb city authorities to launch tests on the streets.

"It is not simple, since we are directly interfering with the current traffic light rules, so we have to talk with the Ministry of Transport. But we have been getting positive reactions, so we hope the Zebra Cross will soon be seen on many pedestrian crossings,” concludes Tihomir Jurić.

Translated from Večernji List (reported by Hana Ivković).

For more news on Croatian inventions visit the Made in Croatia section.

January 21, 2019 — In this article of the Made in Croatia series, find more about Lička janjetina, the protected lamb meat from Lika.

Lička janjetina refers to fresh lamb meat from Lička pramenka, the native curly sheep breed raised exclusively in Lika-Senj and Zadar counties. 

The specific flavors and aromatic profile of the cooked Lika lamb are directly linked to the botanical composition of the region's meadows and mountain pastures on which the lambs are raised. Consequently, in comparison to lamb meat from other areas, the meat of Lika lamb has a distinctive taste, and aroma. Also, because Lička pramenka sheep are reared in the open and get more physical activity, the color of Lika lamb meat is more intensely red and has a nice marbling to it.

Source: Pixabay.com

Although it has only been registered as a product of protected geographical indication in October 2018, the popularity of Lika lamb has been on the rise ever since 1998 when the Autumn in Lika festival was founded. This annual event takes place every mid-October and is a great opportunity not only to try the prized Lička janjetina and other traditional Lika delicacies, but the visitors can also enjoy the region's folklore performances, exhibitions, etc.

However, the main star of this gastronomic event remains Lička janjetina which is traditionally spit-roasted and prepared in a Lika-style sour stew.

If you'd like to know more about protected Croatian products, make sure you're following TCN's dedicated gourmet page.

January 21, 2019 — In this article of the Made in Croatia series, learn more about Zagorski puran, the domestic breed of turkey from the Croatian Uplands.

Zagorski puran — the only Croatian native turkey breed — was registered as a product of a protected geographical indication in 2016, and as of 2000, it has been on the World Watch List for domestic animal diversity.

The ancestors of this prized bird hailing from the Croatian Uplands were brought to the region by the Pauline Fathers in the 15th century, while some sources claim they first arrived to Zagorje in 1523 as a gift from Italian bishop Alessandro Geraldini.

Zagorje turkeys are pasture-raised in a traditional way, on small family farms just outside Zagreb, mainly around Krapina and Varaždin. The average weight of the male gobbler is 6 kilos, whereas females reach about 4 kilos. Turkeys from Zagorje are particularly sought after around Christmastime and the best choice for a traditional holiday spread are female birds not older than 8 months.

Source: Pixabay.com

Zagorski puran is today a protected Croatian brand, and behind this initiative is the Puran zagorskih brega agricultural cooperative. The geographical origin of the Zagorje turkey breed is protected at both the national and European level, meaning the birds can only be raised in Krapina-Zagorje and Varaždin county.

The most popular recipe is Zagorski puran s mlincima, a festive turkey roast dish sided with pasta tatters. In Croatia, turkey with mlinci is traditionally served as the main course during Christmas lunch or dinner.

If you'd like to know more about protected Croatian products, make sure you're following TCN's dedicated gourmet page.