The FINANCIAL — Campa, the Georgian non-alcoholic beverage company established in December 2009, already produces 17 types of juices in Tetrapak and Elopak packages, all of them of prime quality and 100% natural ingredients.
The company produces 120 tons per month and according to the management they are going to increase production at least three times over the coming year. “It will depend on the consumers who already trust in Campa quality,” said Lasha Pkhakadze, General Director at Campa.
The company has already acquired an ISO and HACCP certificate and before long their products will be exported to European markets, mainly to Ukraine, Latvia and Kazakhstan too.
In addition Campa plans to bring and offer ice-tea to it’s customers on Georgian market in the nearest future which will be bottled in 1 and 0.5 litre packages.
Q. What was the size of the initial investment in Campa? And were there problems with starting up your company (perhaps to do with competition)?
A. At Campa there was 100% Georgian initial investment of the overall sum of 5 million GEL. The money has been spent on installing the necessary infrastructure, building, machinery and packaging materials. We didn’t take out any loans when we started our company and don’t have any liability to banks now either.
When we entered the market there were mainly three companies operating on that sector – Sante, Kula and Rtveli 2008. But we are the leaders of the market by producing 100% natural juices as well as by many other different dimensions.
Actually this is nothing compared to the roughly 90% of imported juices, mainly from Ukraine, that is sold in Georgia.
We’re trying our best to brand ourselves as the best company in terms of the quality of our juices in addition to being just a Georgian company.
Q. Do you approve of the fact that all of your production is fully natural? Free of any chemical ingredients/stabilizers?
A. The most important thing is that we have 100% natural juice. The way we prepare juice is as follows: we take the concentrate of different fruits which itself is made by squeezing the juice from the fruits by straining out the seeds and pulp then using heat and vacuum pressure that pulls the water out of the juice, leaving a thick concentrate free of H2O.
To prepare juice for packaging as a ready to drink beverage we blend water back into the concentrate.
We don’t use conservatives or stabilizers at all.
Q. Which companies do you partner with globally, including packaging materials?
A. We’re proud of the quality of the concentrate, the majority from Döhler, Gatfoods, Hippe – all world leading companies. There are no bulk quantities of fruit concentrates produced in Georgia unfortunately, except for apples, grapes, and sea-buckthorn, concentrates that are produced locally and used in quite large quantities.
As for the packaging, when we initially entered the Georgian market we had a TetraPak package which was actually the innovative first juice package on the Georgian market with such a comfortable opening. Now we’ve also got an EloPak package (premium one), which is very convenient too.
Q. Which certificates has the company acquired so far? And has there been any look into production process by observers, (food safety association, and the like)?
A. We’ve recently acquired ISO 9001 and HACCP food safety certificates as well as all Georgian food safety certificates.
Georgian legislation is very loyal about the production of juices because a lot of juices made at 100° in Georgia aren’t juice but compote, the latter being commonly prepared by people at home.
Concentrate technology is starkly different, and is now accepted worldwide. The real technology is by sterilizing the juice at 95° and then cooling it and aseptic tapping after all.
So far we’ve been producing only nectar and the most popular of them have been cherry, peach, tropical flavour and orange.
Q. How many types of juices are produced by the company and tell us about the price difference compared to other imported juices on the Georgian market?
A. In a TetraPak package there are 11 types of juices, 4 types of them in 200 mg and 6 types in a premium Elopak package. Currently we’re adding 4 types in addition to that. Also there will be ice-tea of peach and lemon flavours.
There is a lot of buzz about how juices bottled in glass are more high quality products. But the reality is quite the reverse because of the fact that if such a juice bottle is in the sun’s rays then it can get easily spoiled. And even if only micro biologically, it gets dangerous over time for consumers.
Our products are distinguished from all the imported ones and usage of Natakhtari spring waters are additional advantage for us. In spite of the fact that spring water is of the highest quality we use additional water treatment technology, which makes our juices the most distinctive of all. Therefore it’s impossible to compare the quality of Georgian Natakhtari spring bottled water to Ukrainian ones.
Our premium products cost less than for instance Sandora (brought from Ukraine) of the same type hence we maintain the price competitiveness on a needed level fairly below that of other imported ones.
Q. What about the export of products? Is your production available on other markets?
A. We started planning to export our products since the very beginning of when production started. The only stumbling block was getting an ISO certificate. But now we’ve already acquired it and very soon we’ll start to maximally exploit the export potential and bring our products to foreign markets. Mostly we intend to export to Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Latvia.
Demand is especially boosting for pomegranate juice on foreign markets, hence we’ll satisfy their demand too.
Q. What was the size of investment this year and how much are you going to invest in 2011?
A. In 2010 we’ve already made serious investments in machinery thus we’re not going to further invest in this direction although we’ll focus on increasing assortment as well as sales.
The sales dynamics are positive and we will do our best to achieve greater growth in the coming year.
Q. What about the production process itself and how have you tailored your products to Georgian taste?
A. We’re responsible for all the production processes running at Campa. We get concentrates of the highest quality from the leading companies in the world.
Our production isn’t labour intensive as almost all of the production facilities are automated. Overall there are 27 people employed but all of them are highly qualified. We’ve specially trained our staff for over a year.
Per hour 6,000 litres of juice can be made in TetraPak packages whilst 3,000 litres in EloPak ones.
We have a chemical and micro-biological laboratory equipped with top-notch appliances. Each process is checked in accordance with internationally accepted standards.
The procedure includes micro-biological approval, which actually takes 3 days but this is always undertaken at Campa for added safety measures.
We have tailored the essence/taste of juice to the Georgian character/mentality which is actually different to in other countries. Georgians love sweetish-sour juices therefore we’ve made several tests on dozens of people and made Campa the favourite juice among Georgians en masse.
Q. How is distribution of the final goods made at Campa?
A. Distribution at Campa is done by a separate distribution company which makes sure that the product is presented all across Georgia – in supermarkets, corner shops, restaurants, hotels, etc.
Safe transportation and preservation of already packaged juices are two very important things to be monitored. We have been on the Georgian market for over a year and we have not yet received any single customer complaint.
We work according to European standards (IGN), otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to get an ISO certificate already this year.
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