The best-selling telemea in Romania is produced in Germany

The best-selling telemea in Romania is produced in Germany. The Romanian cheese market is dominated by multinationals, who promote and sell their products well in stores in the country, while local products are less often seen on the shelves. All these situations on the domestic market indicate that domestic producers need better organization and a more active involvement in the relationship with large retail chains and customers.

George Cățean, a farmer from Brașov county who, together with his family, deals with raising sheep and processing milk, raised an alarm in today’s edition, Thursday – March 28, of the Agrostrategia show on TVR 1, related to the position of local cheeses on the Romanian market. The local producer said that, in our country, the most popular telemea is not produced in Romania, but in Germany. He stated that one of the solutions is a better organization of the Romanian producers, a better collaboration with the retail chains in the country, but also a better information to the consumers.

“If we talk about the macro level, strictly on the cheese market in Romania, we can see that the first three places are occupied by three groups of companies, multinationals, which occupy almost 40% of the cheese supply that we have today in Romania. Another important element is the part of information that consumers must have when deciding to choose a product. I say this in the context in which the best-selling telemea in Romania is produced in Germany, which is a bit disappointing, especially since we would have the opportunity to see the local product on the shelf”, said George Cățean.

Farmer George Cățean: “Producers need functional cooperatives”

The situation on the cheese market, a natural consequence of the way Romanian producers have operated on the market, indicates a need for farmers to organize themselves in groups, to collaborate in the relationship with retail chains.

Read also: The village with the tastiest cheese. Sheep graze grass on saline, mineral-rich soils

“First of all, I think we need a good organization at the level of producers, and for many years we have been talking about associative forms, functional cooperatives and processing at the farm level, group of producers. This is what we have been doing since 2014, when we were the first farmers to be invited by an important Romanian hypermarket to organize an island of local products. I took the course. I remember that, ten years ago, about 15 producers were invited to this invitation. Out of the 15 producers, only five responded to the present invitation. We can see where the other 10 producers are, if they still exist or not,” the producer explained in the Agrostrategia show.

From the perspective of the farmer in Brașov county, there are opportunities for domestic producers to develop, survive on the market and sell their products.

“The challenges are major. The moment you, as a producer, are invited to take on a challenge, you have to take it. We are already concluding the tenth year of partnership with a hypermarket and things are going well, especially in the context in which, since 2014, we have been seeing and intuiting this initiative, a strategy that the EU makes available from Farm to Fork, short food chains”, said the farmer from Brașov.

The Cățean family has been collaborating with the Carrefour network for 10 years, where they initiated the first island of local producers. The success of the relationship with Carrefour is due, according to the farmer, to the fact that the retailer adapted to the production conditions of the small supplier, understanding the seasonality of some products and the limited quantity that can be delivered.

Read also: How Romanians who buy cheese from markets and stores are deceived

“The relationship is a good one because it was a bilateral communication, our profile was understood very well, that things must be adapted to our production capacities. And forget that in a decade we’ve proven it can be done. Moreover, the model has been replicated in other counties, in other cities where this supermarket chain is present. At the moment, I think there are more than 80 producers who are present in this project that this supermarket initiated ten years ago”, said George Cățean.

Agrostrategia, TVR 1. Guest: George Cățean, Farmer from Brașov county (28.03.2024)