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The Padjeni dairy processes 70,000 liters of milk per day
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Export to 15 countries and placement on the entire BiH market
BILEĆA – He is the owner of the largest dairy in Eastern Herzegovina, which annually processes about 25 million liters of milk. They purchase milk in the area from Semberija to Herzegovina, and this year they plan to expand production. In addition, he has recently been the president of the Bilec SNSD.
Nenad Vukoje, owner of Mljekara Pađeni, in the podcast “Never in the minus” openly talks about economic and political ambitions, the problem of labor force in smaller communities, and competition on the milk market in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
CAPITAL: You have good relations with the authorities in Republika Srpska. You are part of the ruling party. Any delegation that comes to Bileća, and the president himself, come here. Have you ever benefited from it?
Wolves: I don’t think so, because I didn’t ask for anything and that’s probably one of the reasons why they want to come. I’ve never had a problem at work where I had to beg someone for something.
CAPITAL: Why are you involved in politics at all?
Wolves: I deal with politics for the sake of the company. My company has nothing to do with politics or tenders. I am involved in politics because I want to be better. I think that this way can help this city. I believe that we have to turn Bileća in a different direction and that we should keep our children in these areas.
Every day, 100 vehicles deliver dairy products to Padjeni
CAPITAL: How many workers do you have today?
Wolves: Today, the dairy has around 200 employees. About 70 people work in production, about twenty in purchasing, ten in administration, and the rest in distribution. Every day on the roads you can meet our 110 vehicles that deliver our goods.
CAPITAL: And how did you feel when you hired the first workers?
Wolves: When we started working and when people gathered around us, it was a close or extended family. I must emphasize that since the first day when we started working for us, the mother of Tijana Bošković, the best volleyball player in the world, has been working for us. This is the first worker.
CAPITAL: Remember when you made your first million?
Wolves: I don’t have a million. I think our profit was one million KM. We put everything we earn into this. And to this day. It was our pleasure to use those millions to make a better story than the previous one.
CAPITAL: Did you have experience 25 years ago when you started?
Wolves: We lived in the countryside, we had a couple of cows, but we couldn’t talk about significant production. A little cream and cheese was produced in the household, and my mother usually sold it at the market. When we started, there was a purchase station for a dairy in Mostar, some 25 square meters, we settled there, bought equipment. We borrowed some money because none of the banks wanted to talk to you.
Plan for expanding production in 2025
CAPITAL: How much milk did you process?
Wolves: When we started in September, we had about 130 liters of milk and what the peasants gave us. And at the end of the year, we had over 300 liters. It constantly increased so that today we would hold the market of the entire BiH and export to 15 countries. We now process about 25 million liters of milk per year, and about 70 thousand liters per day. We predicted that in 2025 we can process 100,000 liters of milk per day.
CAPITAL: Is it true that you brought yogurt cups from Montenegro on horses?
Wolves: There was everything, when there weren’t large quantities, when you couldn’t bring raw material on trucks, then we got around, brought it in cars, then you couldn’t cross the border, so you had to cross it on foot, everything happened, but you were proud to be that did and you simply believed in the story that you can make the future out of it.
CAPITAL: When did you realize that your job was going well?
Wolves: If I were to be honest, we realized right at the beginning that we could make a story that would save us later. Even though the children were small, they packed the yogurt together with us. In two years, we realized that our space was small and we created a space of 200 square meters, which seemed huge to us, but it was short-lived, and then we decided that we had to make a projection on how to expand. Now we have 6,500 square meters of space.
You can watch the entire conversation with Nenad Vukoj at CAPITAL TV.
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Source: capital.ba
