EMPOWERED WOMEN
MARIJA PANOVIĆ, PRODUCTION DIRECTOR, VESNA MITROVIĆ, SALES DIRECTOR, RADENKA GOLUBOVIĆ, QUALITY CONTROL DIRECTOR, MLEKARA ŠABAC
Women In Prominent Positions At
MLEKARA ŠABAC
For this CorD special edition dedicated to women in business, Marija, Radenka and Vesna talk about their many decades of experience working at Mlekara Šabac, a major dairy company located in the city of Šabac. They are directors of production, quality control and sales, all key functions in this company that has been operating on the Serbian market for 90 years and which produces dairy products that can be found on markets from Russia, via Europe to America.
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lthough research shows that the path to gender equality is still not easy, Mlekara Šabac has shown that women achieve exceptional results in managerial positions, but also that the percentage of women in top management is on the rise. Here these lady managers talk about their work and experiences, As someone who is most familiar with the production process, from procurement to placement, how would you briefly explain to a new potential consumer why they should choose Mlekara Šabac products? Marija Panović, Production Director: I started getting acquainted with the production process as a young technologist, and I’ still here, this dairy and I are progressing and developing alongside one another. Joking aside, technologist is a masculine noun, and while some claim that the use of gender-sensitive language contributes to raising awareness of the importance of equality between women and men (in my case: technologress or alternatively technologitsa), I personally don’t think that
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leads to gender equality, because the female form of the word emphasises gender, and not what the person does and what results they achieve. A lot has changed since 2008, when I started my career at Mlekara Šabac, in terms of production volume, technology and requirements. Progress is evident. We have implemented the highest standards in food production, which ensure the high quality and health safety of dairy products. Production processes are constantly being improved and perfected, but it should again be emphasised that we also jealously protect the traditional, the good. The priority of our production process, but also the key to success, is product quality, which we have not deviated from for decades. I’m proud of the fact that I once grew up with brands like Sirko and A la kajmak, and today my children are growing up with them. These are completely natural products that we’ve produced according to the same recipe for more than 30 years, without the addition of preservatives, additives and artificial colours, just as we produce many other products, such as yoghurt, young
