Where they sell birch sap. Preparation and sale of birch sap. Container for storage and transportation of juice

The TUT.BY hotline received a message from a reader who claimed that the Gomel forestry, when harvesting birch sap, treats trees barbarically, which are also located on the territory of a botanical natural monument. The journalist of our portal went to the place and figured out why the birch trees are "crying" and what is the price of these tears.

And the reader was struck, as he writes, by the "barbaric way" of collecting birch sap, which the forestry prepares for sale: “The depth of cuts with a chainsaw is up to 25 cm! And last year’s cuts seem to reach the middle of the trunk. How is this possible? drilling. What's going on in the leshozes today? Save our birch trees!"

In addition to the photo, a video was also attached to the letter.

Attention! You have JavaScript disabled, your browser does not support HTML5, or an older version of Adobe Flash Player is installed.

On the main page of the website of the Gomel forestry, an advertisement for the sale of birch sap immediately catches the eye. In the "Manufactured Products" section, it is also listed along with "timber, wood chips, natural honey, household broom and bath broom."

call up with Nicholas Russu- a forester of the Makeevsky forestry, on the territory of which there are those very rugged birch trees. He offers to go to the place to comment on the complaint.

The next morning I go to the forestry. Before leaving for the plot where the juice is being harvested, Nicolae Russu said that there really is a security zone in the place where the reader has visited. But the harvesting of birch sap is organized in a forest area that has nothing to do with it.

- Look here: we put a "tap" in the 179th quarter, section 8th, he shows on the map. - And the natural monument, marked with a dotted line, is located in a completely different quarter - in the 164th, section 10th. The distance between the plot where the juice is harvested and the natural monument is at least 350 meters.

The forester said that when harvesting birch sap, the forestry enterprise has the right to use trees only in areas that will be cut down in the coming years. In order not to be unfounded, I opened the magazine and showed: "Quarter 179, section 8 - clear felling".

- In 2017, we are obliged to cut down the birches in question. Otherwise, it will be a violation of the rules for the use of forests, he explained. - There are guidelines that we strictly adhere to. Understand, these trees are over 80 years old. They will weaken and die. And before cutting down, we must harvest. The forest cannot be eternal: we cut down trees and plant new ones.

The fact that the birch cuts were made with a chainsaw, Nikolay Russu does not deny. He says that this is provided for by the "Rules for the harvesting of secondary forest resources and the implementation of secondary forest management", which states that "when harvesting wood sap, it is allowed to cut with a chainsaw without removing the bark instead of drilling holes".

- Where do you sell birch sap?- I ask.

- Earlier, about 5-6 years ago, we rented it to the Gomel winery. Now there is such a situation that not a single plant in the Gomel region accepts it for processing. They accept it in Brest, but if we start taking it there, it will lead to unjustified costs: the distance is long, fuel is not cheap, and juice is an inexpensive commodity. In addition, cars with tanks would have to be hired - again, expenses. Therefore, we sell juice to the population right in the forest.

While we were driving along the M10 Gomel - Kobrin highway, Nikolay Russu told how this procedure goes.

It turns out that people in advance, back in February, call the forestry to sign up for the purchase of birch sap: they give their last name, how many liters they want to buy and leave their phone number. Thus, a large queue is built.

As soon as the collection of juice begins, forestry workers call those who have signed up. Before taking the juice directly from the plot, they must obtain documents from the forestry for its purchase and export. The forester meets them in the forest. He pours fresh juice from a plastic bag directly into the buyer's container. As they say, everyone is happy: both the forestry, which does not incur additional costs when selling its products, and the buyer, who purchases fresh juice without preservatives at a very favorable price - 1,100 rubles per liter. By the way, it has remained unchanged from last year.

- Feel the difference: either buy it in the store at a price of 14 thousand per liter, or much cheaper right from under the birch- says the forester. - At the same time, the person himself sees that he bought not water, not a concentrate, but the most real fresh birch sap. We also sell juice at a price of 1,300 rubles per liter right in the forestry. But we do this as an exception for grandmothers or disabled people who do not have their own transport. And the restWe give you directions for where to go. The forester is constantly on duty there, meets the buyer, who arrives in his car, checks the bill of lading issued to him in the forestry indicating the displacement, as well as the payment receipt. That's the whole procedure - the buyer leaves with the juice.

The plan for the collection of birch sap - 12 thousand liters per season - Makeevskoe forestry performs without problems.

-And all this takes the population?

- Yes, and we do not even have time to satisfy requests.

For those who want to harvest juice themselves, without intermediaries, a special plot is allotted, Nikolay Russu told. Then the juice will cost a person completely free of charge. First you need to tell how many liters you need, the forester will show the birches, introduce you to the rules that must be followed when collecting. It remains to make holes on your own with a screwdriver and then guard the tree in order to drain the juice from it into your container.

- And in what cases are they fined for collecting juice in the forest?

- When it is done on unauthorized logging sites and not according to the rules. For example, someone decided to drill 20 holes around the barrel, while a maximum of four can be made. Fines for such violations are considerable - up to 20 basic units, which is more than 3.5 million rubles.

Soon we turned onto the road towards the village of Tsykuny, in the area of ​​​​which there is a forest area, captured in the pictures and video by our reader. And here is the 164th quarter, which is marked with a sign as a natural monument.

After 300 meters we saw the very plot to which we were heading. Nikolai Russu once again focused on the fact that it has nothing to do with the natural monument.

We were met by a forester Sergey Yakovlev:

- A lot of people come here, the juice does not have time to drip, he smiles. - I've been working here for several years, from year to year the same people buy - both young and retired. And new ones are constantly being added. No one has yet complained about the quality of the juice, but they take it to clean the kidneys, to give children a drink with a pure product. Someone rolls into jars, someone makes kvass.

The forester is on duty here constantly, all daylight hours. He guards the plot, because there are, as he put it, barbarians who can tear the sacks and take the juice that has not been paid for.

This is how juice flows into the plastic bag through two grooves.

The forester says that the birches in this plot are more than 34 cm in diameter. According to the instructions, you can make three cuts on one tree, but they make two.

- Even if there are last year's cuts on the tree, this year we have the right to make them on the other side of the trunk. The main thing is that the distance between the upper lines of the cuts should be at least 20 cm,- shows Nikolai Russu. - This is not an amateur, but commercial harvesting of juice, and it follows the rules established throughout Belarus.So we respect both the distance between the cuts and their depth.

- Can you take juice from birches that are not planned to be cut down?

- Of course not. It is forbidden. We do not have the right to collect birch sap on plots that are not designated by the forest management company for felling. In such areas of the forest, no one will touch the birch not only with a chainsaw, but even with screwdrivers.

- Can you comment on the garbage dump in the forest?- I recall another problem identified by our reader.

Nikolai Russu says that there really were mountains of rubbish, but the workers of the Makeevka forestry have already removed them.

- Our forestry is suburban, and garbage is a huge problem for us. In addition to the fact that there are many settlements near the forest, there are also about a dozen dacha cooperatives - about 5 thousand plots. Unfortunately, not all people are decent: someone throws garbage where it should be, and someone takes it to the forest, which is nearby, he said.

I learned another interesting piece of news from my interlocutor - soon the forest department is going to install three video surveillance cameras in the forest in order to catch unscrupulous people.

- The cameras are small in size, they can be disguised as a birdhouse or a stump,- says Nikolai Russu. - But still, this will not solve the problem: we will catch someone, someone will not. The territory of the Makeevsky forestry is 8,240 hectares, and there are only 13 foresters. There is only one most effective way - to stop bringing unnecessary rubbish here.

Thirty-five-year-old graduate of the Mechanics and Mathematics Department of St. Petersburg University, Alexei Gribin, has been collecting birch sap since childhood on a summer cottage of 35 acres in the village of Voeykovo in the Leningrad region. Four years ago, he bought a bottle of birch sap in one of the cafes. He did not like the taste: "Water with sugar and citric acid, not birch sap."

It was then that the indignant Gribin decided to produce birch sap not only for his own use, but also for sale: people need to know what a real birch drink is. In 2013, the entrepreneur resigned from the position of chief specialist in the committee for energy and engineering support of the administration of St. Petersburg and created the 7 birches company. And last year, he started brewing maple syrup under the 6 Maples brand.

Investments new business required minimal. Gribin bought 60 five-liter cans of water for several thousand rubles, poured water out of them (it was convenient to collect juice in them) and another 30,000 rubles. spent on organizing a festival of birch sap in the Vsevolozhsk district of the Leningrad region. The technology was elementary - Gribin hung five-liter bottles on trunks in his dacha (he has 70 birches) and in the forest next door. Later, he expanded the grove to almost 400 trunks, having agreed with the Geophysical Laboratory located nearby. A. I. Voeikova. “In America, juice is harvested right in the parks,” says Gribin.

If in 2013 the revenue of 7 Birches amounted to only a few tens of thousands of rubles, then in 2015 it increased 10 times to 600,000 rubles. The product turned out to be quite in demand, says Gribin. And the net profit margin is about 30%. Last year, Gribin collected 10 tons of juice, and this year he plans to collect four times as much - if he finds the right number of trees: on average, 3 liters of juice can be collected from one tree per day.

Dropper and ultraviolet

Gribin makes a hole in the bark of a tree, inserts a disposable medical dropper into it, then attaches a sterile medical tube to it. Several of these tubes, going at an angle from different trunks, are connected into one larger one, the juice flows into the canister. Then the entrepreneur cleans the collected liquid with a special ultraviolet lamp and freezes it in a freezer (Gribin has previously frozen mushroom berries for his own use in large quantities). Freezing is considered to be the optimal processing method in terms of costs and preservation of useful properties, says Anatoly Gavrilyuk, CEO of Absolute Nature Group of Companies (“Live Juices”). Other options are sterilization or pasteurization at a temperature of 70-80 ° C, followed by the manufacture of a concentrate.

Juice of the fatherland

According to the Union of Producers of Non-Alcoholic Drinks and Mineral Waters, the capacity of the soft drinks market in 2015 amounted to 6 billion liters. However, birch sap, according to Anatoly Gavrilyuk from Absolute Nature, accounts for less than 1%.

The service life of the juice pipeline is short - about three weeks, then you have to change the tubes for new sterile ones. Gribin spied the idea of ​​such a system on the Internet from Canadian and American farmers.

There are only 3-4 producers of birch sap in Russia, estimates Mikhail Chetvertakov, general director of Dobrye Vody company (which has been producing birch sap since 1998). And a company with a sales volume of birch drink of 1 million rubles. per year is considered a major producer, say Gavrilyuk and Chetvertakov.

In the Soviet Union, birch sap was produced in large quantities and was inexpensive, and because of this, the consumer still considers this drink to be second-rate, comments Anatoly Gavrilyuk, CEO of Absolute Nature Group (“Live Juices”). But abroad, birch sap is considered a fashionable organic product and is not cheap, the expert says. For example, a 250 ml bottle of juice on Amazon.com costs about 830 rubles in terms of rubles. And 0.5 liters of birch sap "7 birches" costs 100 rubles.

festival channel

The main sales channel is mass events and festivals. An active political life helped Gribin to establish supplies. He ran in municipal elections twice as a self-nominated candidate. Both attempts ended in failure, but Gribin managed to get acquainted with the governor of the Leningrad region Alexander Drozdenko. And when, in the spring of 2014, Gribin decided to organize the first birch sap festival on the territory of the Geophysical Laboratory. A. I. Voeikov, he turned for support to Drozdenko and the head of the administration of the Vsevolozhsk district, Vladimir Drachev. And they supported him - as the initiator of an interesting cultural and patriotic event. Gribin built his own branded juice pipeline and poured juice from a tree into plastic cups for approaching festival guests. All Gribin's expenses (about 30,000 rubles) paid off through sales. Gribin expects that more than 1,000 people will come to the festival this year.

At another festival “Oh yes! Food!" in June 2015, on Elagin Island, Gribin earned 110,000 rubles in two days, having paid a participation fee of 40,000 rubles. According to Gribin, the benefit of fairs and festivals is that the sale of products from personal subsidiary plots is not taxed and does not require the use of cash registers. True, it is necessary to provide documents on quality. Gribin has them: birch sap has passed laboratory tests and received the conclusion of Rospotrebnadzor (a copy is available from Vedomosti).

Canadian chef and Russian syrup

In 2015, Gribin began experimenting with other natural products - birch and maple syrups. According to Gribin, it was unprofitable to cook maple syrup three years ago: it was cheaper to buy from Canadian and American producers. But the devaluation of the ruble gave the entrepreneur a chance. He borrowed recipes from colleagues from Canada and the USA. At first, he cooked syrups on a stove from juice collected in the same grove, but this was ineffective, Gribin admits. Now he uses a custom-made juicer. To obtain 1 liter of maple syrup, you need 40–70 liters of juice, and for 1 liter of birch syrup, 60–150 liters. Now Gribin can process up to 1000 liters of juice per day.

According to the entrepreneur, in the summer of 2015, at the food festival, Alexander Belkovich, the brand chef of the Ginza Project restaurant holding, contacted the entrepreneur. Now Gribin is negotiating with Ginza about regular deliveries and hopes to be in time for Shrovetide. A Ginza spokesman confirmed the talks. This year, the entrepreneur also plans to sell 100 liters of maple syrup at farmers' markets.

Now 150 g of syrup "6 maples" costs 300 rubles. - 1.5-2 times lower than the imported product, says Gribin. And the other day, says Gribin, the chef of the restaurant at the Grand Hotel Europe, Canadian Ian Minnis, became interested in maple syrup. The hotel representative confirmed the planned meeting between Minnis and Gribin. Almost all of Gribin's revenue comes from retail, but he expects to increase the share of restaurants. But first, Gribin will have to certify the products.

Too few trees

Last summer, Gribin traveled to the first international conference of birch sap and syrup producers in New York State. And there he came up with the idea to supply products to the foreign market. Back in the summer, the Slovak smoothie producer Acaimania wanted to buy a batch of juice, but the entrepreneur did not have enough. Birch sap is also used in the production of cosmetics, but manufacturers need a certificate of organic origin for Gribin's products. “The problem is that in Russia so far there are no such standards at all. I even applied to Opora Rossii,” he says.

This year, Gribin hopes to receive European quality certificates, and now he is registering his business as a peasant farm. He wants to rent a forest in the Leningrad region, but it is expensive and eats up profits, the farmer says. According to government decree No. 310 of May 22, 2007 “On the rates of payment for a unit of forest resources and the rates of payment for a unit of area of ​​a federally owned forest plot”, he will be forced to pay a fee of 10 rubles per liter of birch sap. in the Leningrad region. “If I cannot defeat the system and change this rule, then I will go to work in another region,” says Gribin. The growth prospects for an entrepreneur in Russia are limited. To become a major producer, you need large stocks of raw materials, i.e. trees, says Gavrilyuk.

Birch juice loved by many people in our country. It is very useful for the body, as it contains the substances it needs, and even in a balanced amount. By drinking birch sap, you can easily improve your health and, most importantly, satisfy the need for vitamins.

It seems that every inhabitant of Russia has tried birch sap. Previously, back in Soviet times, it was made by forestries. Now, it is not often possible to meet a company that produces birch sap. It is much more profitable to produce carbonated water or alcohol.

But Birch juice excellently cleanses the blood, it is drunk for the prevention of oncology, in the postoperative period, it improves the condition of patients with arthritis and rheumatism, and also removes heavy metals from the body.

That's why birch sap harvesting and its further sale is a great way to earn money, especially if you revive the knowledge of its benefits and positive qualities in people's memory.

The best option for a novice entrepreneur is to establish contacts with enterprises that are engaged in logging, with hunters, farms, and so on.

You will also need to purchase vehicles with high cross-country ability. Even if you just collect the juice yourself, you can make decent money - you can get up to 10 liters from one tree per day. And if you take a swing and create an entire enterprise for the preparation and sale of birch sap, then the income will be very, very high. Prices for natural juices are high now, so the idea is promising.

In advance, you must find ways to market products. You can sell juice through retail chains, restaurants, cafes and so on.

You should pay maximum attention to the process of processing and storing the finished juice. After all, even if it is stored at temperatures below 5 degrees Celsius, the shelf life is no more than 5 days.

Therefore, if you want to keep it for a longer amount of time, then you need to freeze it. So you can win up to three more months. After that, the juice is often processed into wine or kvass. Thus, you can sell finished products all year round.

Pay attention to the place birch sap preparations. After all, factors such as the proximity of large factories, highways, railways, can adversely affect the quality of products.

Every year, for one and a half to two spring weeks, the forestry enterprises of our country harvest about 20 thousand tons of birch sap. The population is not far behind. Many in different ways try to stock up on a “live” drink for the future, and someone manages to earn money on it. And quite legally.

It turned out to be quite simple to get a seasonal job in the Logoisk forestry. They hire local residents under contract contracts.

But it is necessary to fulfill the daily norm - to collect at least 180 liters, - instructs the forester of the Kozyrsky forestry Alexander Grishchenya, seeing him off to the plot. - Calculations are simple: for each liter at the end of the work, you will receive 140 rubles. Compliance with the norm guarantees another 20 percent of the total amount.

I confess, overcomes despondency. Miserable rates! Yes, even try to “squeeze out” these almost 2 centners of liquid per day from a birch!

Meet my team. These are residents of the surrounding villages. They were given a plot of 12.2 hectares. It took them two days to prepare - they had to make cuts on the marked trees, drive in metal grooves, tie up plastic bags.

The work is monotonous, - recalls 37-year-old Vladimir. - On the hundredth birch, the head began to spin.

The number of holes depends on the diameter of the tree (20-26 cm - one, 27-34 cm - two, 35-40 cm - three, more than 40 cm - four). Holes are either drilled with a drill or sawn with a saw to a depth of no more than 2-3 centimeters, without taking into account the thickness of the bark. A stainless steel groove or a freshly cut shoot of hazel, maple, linden is inserted into the prepared hole. A plastic bag is tied under the groove. Juice from containers must be taken at least 1 time per day.

In total, about 600 birches were drained in our plot, 1200 packages were tied to them. They turn white at the roots of trees, visible from afar. Another bypass shows that some containers are almost full to capacity. So it's time to go to work.

A tractor with a barrel-trailer makes its way along the clearings with an effort. Our task is to untie full packages from trees and bring them to the tractor. Then the juice goes to the barrel, from where, as it fills up, it is pumped with the help of a motor pump into a stationary container at the “base” - a platform in the middle of the forest. And from there, by agreement with the forestry, the drink will be taken by transport from the nearest processing plant.

A plastic bag tied to a birch can hold up to 40 liters of juice. In principle, it is not very difficult to lift and move it a few meters together. The main thing is not to break it on the branches of the bushes. In just 15 minutes, I easily and naturally fulfill the minimum daily allowance of 184 liters. Then, as they say, I work for myself. Within an hour we fill a three-ton trailer barrel. I quickly calculate in my mind: my “share” is 500 liters. I mentally put 84,000 rubles in my pocket. Not much? For now.

The gifts of nature are quickly distilled from the trailer to a stationary container, and we again go for bags. It's not worth delaying. The stronger the sun bakes, the more actively the juice circulates through the birches. On hills and open places, it flows from the grooves, like from a moonshine still in the notorious movie, just have time to substitute the container. So, every minute of delay deprives us of blood.

In the distance, on the forest road, someone frantically honks. It's our customers who got lost. Residents of Minsk and other settlements rush to stock up on “fresh” for future use and storm our base. They paid the receipts at the forestry office, and our task is to sell them “according to the purchased tickets”.

Eduard came from Minsk. In the trailer of his car, various-sized canisters and kegs. Paid for 450 liters of juice.

The best way to keep the juice until autumn is to make kvass out of it, - the guest shares the recipe. - I pour the drink into plastic bottles, add a few raisins to each, put it in the cold. After a week or two, a refreshing drink is ready.

Alexander and his wife Marina are from Borovlyany. They went 40 kilometers from home for 50 liters of spring liquid. Lost a lot of time. Burned a lot of fuel. Carried out an unplanned crash test of the car on a bumpy forest road. Was the game worth the candle? It turned out that the process is important to them. They themselves cheerfully walk between the birches, looking for a “more nutritious” package, pouring it into a canister with their own hands. We are in a good mood, we urge:

They would choose a birch near the house and squeeze these liters out of it!

You know, I'm better officially. It'll be cheaper...

Really not worth the risk. Alexander Grishchenya warns that, in accordance with the Code of Administrative Offenses, a fine of up to 4.2 million rubles is provided for violating the rules for harvesting juice. On the basis of the same Logoisk forestry, a liter of juice costs only 1,500 rubles. So is it really worth the risk?

The guests are leaving, and it's time for us to work. We start the tractor, we go to the forest.

From morning until the end of the day, our team manages to prepare 12 tons of juice. And this is not the limit. The hottest days are ahead. I'm counting the profits. It turns out that he earned 336 thousand rubles a day. On average, the sap flow lasts 12-14 days, which means that the average harvester can count on additional earnings in the amount of about 4 million rubles. As a bonus - the ability to drink at least liters of birch, as they say, without leaving the cash register.

Can't say I'm overworked. Periods of hard work are replaced by long rest, when you can just sit, take a breath, talk with companions about life. Each of them has their own plans for additional earnings.

Old-timers from forestry workers recall that earlier it was not only honorable, but also very profitable to get a job as a birch sap harvester. Foresters and today are temporarily transferred to the positions of fellers in order to have the right to engage in harvesting. Why not, if the help is appreciated worthy?

The guys from my brigade will come to the plot again at dawn the next day. When the harvesting season is over, they still have to clean up after themselves and heal the wounded birches.

According to the rules, after collecting the juice, the grooves must be removed, and the holes closed with wooden plugs or covered with pitch, garden ointment, clay with lime or resin containing 20 percent of charcoal. This will prevent tree diseases. The forest teaches to live more than one day.

Opinion

Elena Andreeva, head of the canning industry department of the Belgospischeprom concern:

- Every year, our processing enterprises buy up to 95 percent of all collected birch sap from forestry enterprises - from 15 to 20 thousand tons per year. As a result, we get about 40 million conditional cans of the finished product, which is bottled in glass containers, tetra packs, PET bottles and backboxes of various sizes.

Birch sap is the most popular drink among our citizens. The demand is so great that during the season almost all canning factories are involved in its processing. The product is exported to Russia, Lithuania. Even in the United States in recent years, birch has been making a splash, competing with coconut water, which has long been loved by Americans. However, export volumes are small: the drink is actively bought up in the domestic market.

And this is not surprising. Indeed, of all the juices produced by our enterprises, it is birch juice that is the most valuable in terms of its useful properties and taste. Moreover, it is pure birch that is most in demand, without additives, only with sugar.

There is an opinion that glass containers for bottling juice are an outdated technology. This is wrong.

First, glass is considered the most environmentally friendly packaging. Secondly, the shelf life of a drink in a glass jar reaches 2 years (in a tetra pack - no more than 1 year). Thirdly, the consumer can visually assess the quality of the product only in a transparent glass jar or bottle.

One of the main tasks is to keep the maximum amount of useful substances in the juice. That is why some of the raw materials at the factories are placed in aseptic containers or aseptic storage bags in order to supply retail outlets with fresh products during the off-season. In a vacuum and completely closed environment, fresh birch can be stored for several months.

Foreigners are wary of Russian products. They don’t eat buckwheat, they don’t understand herring under a fur coat, they don’t even try to cook borscht. Yes, at one time the world enthusiastically accepted vodka, but that was already in the 16th century! Since then, there have been no examples of such a successful expansion of Russian food and drinks. How did the immigrants from Eastern Europe manage to teach modern London to drink ryazhenka, buy Borodino bread and order birch sap on the Internet? ZIMA talked to three entrepreneurs about how to enter the English market with a Russian product.

What to sell

If you ask Russian entrepreneurs who moved to the UK what prompted them to start producing Russian food here, many will answer: they missed the taste familiar from childhood, but they could not find an analogue. So in England, in particular, the production of fermented baked milk appeared - the company was the first to launch it. Bio-tiful Dairy. Its head, Natasha Bowes, had 15 years of experience at KPMG and Barclays in Moscow, Dublin and London and had been drinking kefir since childhood. Having moved to England, she could only find Polish kefir here, which did not suit her taste at all. After drawing up a business plan and doing research, Bowes realized that there was practically no competition in the British market for fermented milk products.

The first customers of Bio-tiful Dairy were Russian-speaking visitors to Harrods and Whole Foods. This was inevitable, although from the very beginning the product was not positioned as “Russian”, so as not to limit the scale of the business. However, in 2014, Bio-tiful Dairy signed an agreement with Ocado and Riverford Organic, marking the end of the pilot phase of the project and the start of "real work," according to Bowes. Since then, Russian-speaking buyers have been in the minority. Today, Bio-tiful kefir is available in Sainsbury's, Co-op and Whole Foods chain stores.

Bowes believes that when positioning a product, it is important to rely on its fundamental qualities, and not on Russian roots. In the case of fermented baked milk and kefir, three factors turned out to be fundamental: health benefits, pleasant taste and convenient packaging. “Now the main trends all over the world are health and convenience. The demand for organic products in light and convenient packaging is growing very fast. At the same time, it is clear that no matter how useful and beautifully packaged a product is, it will not be successful if it does not taste good,” Bowes is convinced. Can not argue.

A similar foundation was laid in the basis of her product by Anna Skopets, who founded the company TreeVitalise, which produces birch sap. The drink turned out to be so unusual and incomprehensible to the British that it took a lot of effort before consumers, retailers and distributors understood what they were offered. To do this, TreeVitalise arranged free tastings in stores and at exhibitions, carefully thought out packaging and built a pricing policy, realizing that there would be no quick return on investment.

“In England, the very concept of “products from the forest” is missing,” says Skopets. - To convince people to try our juice, we had to draw an analogy with maple syrup, which is essentially the same tree sap, only concentrated. With just 10 calories per bottle and tons of beneficial micronutrients, birch sap is a good substitute for sugary juices and coconut water. It perfectly quenches thirst, has an anti-inflammatory effect on the body, flushes out toxins, stimulates the liver and kidneys. And at the same time it has a light and fresh taste. Today, two years after starting the TreeVitalise business, the company's products can be found in TK Maxx, Selfridges, HomeSense and Holland & Barrett stores in the UK and Ireland.

How to set up production

Birch sap for TreeVitalise is collected and bottled in the Carpathians. The need for imports is explained by the fact that early spring in Eastern Europe is more turbulent. The land oversaturated with melt water feeds birch trees, and each tree produces about five liters of sap per day, while in England, where the climate is milder, it would take several days to collect the same volume, and it would be difficult to keep the juice fresh - it starts very quickly. to roam. In addition, it turns out that only a certain type of tree is suitable for the production of good birch sap - silver birch, the most common in Russia, the Carpathian region, the Baltic states and Scandinavian countries. After collection, the juice is packaged in glass containers - plastic is not good, the bacteria in it multiply faster. “This has almost become a problem with UK distributors who prefer plastic for safety reasons,” says Anna Skopets. “I had to convince and persuade.”

Bio-tiful Dairy buys sourdough from Russia and produces kefir and fermented baked milk from British milk on a farm in West Sussex. Any food production is associated with marketing risks due to the short shelf life of the product: it is necessary that everything is in order with refrigerators along the entire chain from the source of raw materials to the store, so the logistics and distribution process is expensive and difficult.

“It was difficult to work with distributors, because in England they don't do sales, only logistics. They have a lot of products in the catalog and you have to first sell the idea to distributors, then sell the product to each store individually, then convince the consumer to buy the product. Often the latter is the easiest to convince,” Anna Skopets admits.

The UK food industry has a well-established start-up support system, which allows you not only to find investors, but also get valuable advice on scaling and promoting your business.

Nadezhda Genchas, the founder of the Karaway bakery, whose clients include Harrods, Selfridges, Whole Foods, prestigious restaurants The Delaunay, Fischer’s, Le Gavroche, as well as the London office of Gazprom, agrees with this. Having set a modest goal for its business 12 years ago to feed people from the CIS with delicious rye bread, today Genchas has won recognition not only from the general public, but also from experts: its products have been awarded the stars of the national Great Taste Awards competition, and Lithuanian Scalded Rye bread Lithuanian custard bread with cumin , which is baked on dried bulrush leaves, has been named one of the UK's Top 50 Foods. “Chefs and buyers are very conservative and afraid to change something, we have to break the ice,” says Genchas. - It is much easier with the end user. Customers evaluate the product instantly for taste and quality and immediately decide whether to take or not to take. And retailers want it to be cheaper, simpler and hassle-free. Therefore, in August, after a break, our store will reopen at Westfield Stratford Shopping Center, where all our products will be collected - not only bread, but also muffins, cookies and cakes.

Natural rye bread Karaway produces in London. It is made by hand on grandfather's sourdoughs by natural fermentation, the dough matures for several days and bakes for more than an hour, unlike ordinary bread, which is baked in a store in 20 minutes from quick mixes. This is reflected in the price: Karaway bread is several times more expensive than store-bought loaves. But, according to Genchas, there is a stable demand for products: “There are only 10-15 artisanal bakeries in London. And most produce mainly wheat bread, rye bread is very expensive, and the choice is small. For them, rye bread is an additional assortment, for us, on the contrary, it is the main one.”

Where to get money

The production and sale of Russian food in England does not bring quick returns. So, in addition to solving other problems, entrepreneurs have to look for an answer to the question of where to get money from.

For the first three and a half years, Natasha Bowes financed Bio-tiful Dairy with her own funds (she does not disclose the amount spent). Last year, Natasha took part in the iconic business and start-up program Dragons' Den, which has been airing on BBC Two for many years. There she received an offer from British businessmen to sell 45% of the company for£ 250 thousand, but, much to the surprise of both the "dragons" and the audience, she refused. But six months later, she attracted investments into the company on the terms that she considered right for herself.

Anna Skopets also started a business on her own, then attracted multi-stage investments. To find investors, she advises actively making acquaintances in your field of business, going to consulting forums and meetings with famous entrepreneurs. The UK food industry has a well-established start-up support system, which allows you not only to find investors, but also get valuable advice on scaling and promoting your business. In particular, for those who, like her, intend to turn food into a business, Skopets advises to pay attention to startup accelerators Cinnamon Bridge and Bread and Butter.

How to get to the shops

This is perhaps the main question. “You can promote your product in the media as much as you like, but if people cannot find it on the shelf of the nearest store, then it’s all in vain,” says Natasha Bowes.

She admits that at the beginning she had no idea how competitive the UK food industry would be. At the initial stage, it is quite possible to succeed. Difficulties begin further when you need to get on the shelves of chain stores and somehow stand out from the huge variety of products that appear on the market every day: “This is an industry where 97% of the market is concentrated in the hands of four or five large chains, and it is almost impossible to break through. People say that 500 new offers a day are pouring into the e-mail of the Waitrose buyer. Huge flow. And the buyers who make decisions about your product niche in these stores are very conservative.”

There is no definite answer to the question of what exactly needs to be done in order to be guaranteed to break into large supermarkets. “We ourselves don’t know what worked, which of our team’s tireless efforts led to Bio-tiful Dairy kefir and fermented baked milk, in particular, on the shelves at Sainsbury’s. We were talking to one part of the industry, and the offer to deliver the product came from another. Yes, they communicated with each other, but this clearly did not happen directly, - argues Bowes and adds: - One thing is for sure: in our field it is very important to be able to build business relationships with people at every level, from employees and customers to suppliers and regulators . In England it is impossible not to be a pleasant person. So, if we learn to add English politeness and courtesy to our natural qualities, this combination can create a very winning combination.