Now is the time to provide good quality and to enter the higher price segment

Address of Tsvetan Simeonov, President of BCCI

There are opportunities for the food and drink industry and new challenges before “Food Processing Industry” Magazine, which celebrates its 60th anniversary today. These opportunities are provided by the growing prices of agricultural produce worldwide and the food sector in general, which is a stimulus to use agricultural lands more efficiently because many of them are currently desolate. A lot of opportunities to produce goods with higher quality still haven’t been used. Therefore, we will continue to rely on FPI Magazine to propose new solutions and to encourage Bulgarian entrepreneurs to take up such activities. We also believe that the food sector could expand in the new business environment. As a manufacturer of food products, Bulgaria should target the higher price segment, gradually leaving the low mass production price segment.

Meanwhile, we should work for better industrialization of the products in the sector. This is the only way to present our country with its own brand, because we have a lot to offer. We have a quality to preserve and develop. You know the sector better than I do and you know the potential of Bulgarian products. That is why, we at the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, expect FPI Magazine to continue promoting innovation and in-depth processing of products among Bulgarian manufacturers. Still, huge amounts of our products are exported in their freshly frozen form.

We also try to encourage this movement of the food industry. As you know, since last year we have been organizing the Bio & Eco EXPO - Exhibition of Food Products. In our opinion, FPI Magazine should continue to encourage Bulgarian manufacturers to develop bio and eco products as a line of business, because this is another opportunity for our products to enter the higher price segment.

We are glad that you have chosen export and foreign trade as the topic of today’s discussion. Two things have been underlined as the pillars of any company in the food and drink industry – high quality and the search for new markets. Of course, BCCI is at your service with its entire capacity, international relations and contacts. We will be glad to contribute to entering new markets more quickly, to finding more partners abroad and not tying your hands by working with one representative abroad only. In the conditions of higher prices of food products, the prices of raw materials increase as well due to the fact that there are limited amounts of agricultural produce.

Now is the time to combine them with high quality and to sell them on higher prices. There are opportunities and may FPI Magazine provide a link and encourage these expectations.

Happy anniversary and may you have many more successful years!

21.06.2011