The FINANCIAL — Georgian companies are developing export and testing new markets. Some of them have already found their niche in foreign countries.
Confectionary company Barambo, which was founded in 2009, has recently started manufacturing. The company is in the process of researching and establishing a niche in the Azeri confectionary market.
“To enter and take a position in the Azeri market is a very positive financial step in our business,” said Aleko Stroganov, Marketing Manager of Barambo, producer company of confectionary products in Georgia.
“Azeris have huge consumption of sweets per capita. Besides that the market is much bigger than in our country. If we hold even a small part of their market, we will have more profit than we do now in Georgia.” he told The FINANCIAL.
“Export countries are bigger. That influences the sale’s number of our company. 80% of our production goes for export. That’s why export is necessary for each big company,” said Tea Kikvadze, Marketing Manager of Teliani Valley. “Though Teliani Valley is interested in improving equal quality on the local market as well as abroad. If your product isn’t well introduced on the local market, you can’t have successful export.”
GM Pharmacy says export is their priority field at that moment. They started export 4 years ago. In the last two years export increased by 40-50%. Now they have 9 partner companies: Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Tajikistan, Libya and Sierra Leone. Georgian medicines are the most popular in Uzbekistan. The most popular ones are Lacto G, Trimetazidine and Azithromycin.
Though they export over 30% of the whole production, they plan to expand the number in the future. GMP exported almost 7,000,000 USD worth of products in 2010. This year started the second decade of their establishment in Georgia.
“That’s why we are more concentrated on export these days. We plan to transform from a local company to a global one. We want to make the Georgian brand popular. Our aim is that Georgian medicines will establish their name abroad synonymous with high quality products,” noted Marika Lomtadze, Brand Manager of GM Pharmacy.
Brewery Natakhtari like GMP has led export since 2006. These days they export Georgian lemonade to 16 countries, among them Poland, Belgium, Israel, Ukraine etc.
“Our export expanded in the last two years and hiked to 30% of the whole industry,” said Tornike Nikolaishvili, Marketing Manager of Natakhtari.” Consequently our shares and marketing activity on foreign markets increased. Most of our export goes to neighbour countries like Azerbaijan and Armenia. We have to remark that we have significantly increased our share on the Ukrainian market as well.”
According to Nikolaishvili exporting lemonade is a great responsibility for them as Georgian lemonade is associated with the country’s traditions.
As Stroganovi added Barambo exports all kinds of sweets to Azerbaijan. The most demanded among them is caramel. They’ve also launched the export of chocolate bars, which could also be very interesting for Azeris.
Telliani Valley exports its wine to 25 countries. Besides Post Soviet and European countries their export destinations include America and the Baltic countries. But Kikvadze says that most demand still comes from post Soviet countries like Ukraine and Belarus.
“Since 2008 we have significantly increased our export. We can say that the figures doubled from what they were before,” added Kikvadze. “This year we are implementing very ambitious plans. We have already entered two new markets – Austria and Australia. In addition, we recovered our relationship with China.
We have observed that semi sweet red wine is the most popular type abroad. Then come semi sweet white wine, dry red and dry white at the end.”
Telliani Valley has 200 hectares of vineyard, but it’s not enough for their manufacturing. Every year the company expands its vineyard, but every year they have to purchase more grapes during the vintage period from local peasants.
In order to get the right to export there exist some international standards which must be fulfilled, e.g. each company needs to get a Certificate of Origin for its production. Besides that there is a requirement to stick an adapted (translated) label on to each product, relevant to the export country.
“For every new medicine we pass a registration process of the medicine up to one year,” said Lomtadze.” Simultaneously the medicine is laboratory and analytically investigated in the export countries as well. Besides that foreign experts come and check every detail in the factory over a period of several days.”
“The production of Teliani Valley passes through several procedures before going to export,” noted Kikvadze.” The procedures changes according to the export country. Wine is tested in Samtrest. Then we take samples to the Multi Test which gives us test results. After getting permission we label wine bottles with the excise of the country where we send it.”
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