Business news

MINSK, 3 March (BelTA) – Beryoza Cheese-Making Plant has plans to supply products to Azerbaijan, Yelena Shakalida, the company’s deputy director for commercial affairs, told journalists on 3 March before a seminar to discuss export-related matters, BelTA has learned.

“Azerbaijan has recently been showing interest in our products. We have not seen so many cooperation proposals and so many delegations from this country for a long time. Now we have a good opportunity for entering this market. We have plans to export our cheese to Azerbaijan,” Yelena Shakalida noted.

She said that the enterprise already exported butter to this country. “As for the European Union, whey powder is the only product that we sell to the EU. It was difficult to get a foothold on this market. The certification process took a lot of time and was rather costly. We had to upgrade the manufacturing facilities and technologies. It took us around three years,” the company’s representative explained.

Today the enterprise exports to Europe around 120-160 tonnes of products per month. Whey powder is sold to Poland, Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Lithuania. “It is difficult to supply finished products, like cheese, to the EU because of the high customs duties, around €2 per kilogram. The duty on whey powder is seven euro cents, so this product is quite competitive there,” Yelena Shakalida explained.

All in all, Beryoza Cheese-Making Plant exports around 60% of its output, including 20-25% to CIS and non-CIS countries, and the rest to Russia.

Beryoza Cheese-Making Plant is one of the leading dairy companies in Belarus. It offers more than 180 products. The daily processing capacity of the enterprise is up to 1,000 tonnes of milk.