A Croatian processor uses relatively unknown fish species in his product assortment

Innovative products for high-end customers

Živko Dražin, a former fisherman, is the founder and owner of Riba Dražin, a Croatian company that uses locally-sourced raw materials as well as imports to create a range of innovative products for sale on the domestic market as well as for export.

Octopus salad next to a squid sauce that can be made into a quick yet tasty risotto.

Croatia has a long history of catching and processing fish especially the small pelagic species, anchovies and pilchards, which are caught in large volumes. The fish are typically salted, marinated, or canned, but over time new products have been developed and marketed often with great success. Riba Drazin is among the companies devising traditional products with a new twist. Established in 2013 in Kaštel Kambelovac in Dalmatia by Zivko Drazin, a small-scale fisherman, the company represents the town’s heritage as a centre for fishing and fish processing. As tradition dictates, at Riba Drazin all the processing is done by hand and the quality of the final products is guaranteed by the freshly caught raw materials that Mr Drazin sources from a network of local fishers who operate in the Adriatic.

Adding value to little-known species

At his processing facility, Mr Drazin has an industrial cooker, a recent investment, that he uses to process species like saddled seabream, octopus, tuna, and chub mackerel, as

well as seabass and seabream. There is also a smoking oven which is used for some species of shellfish, mainly mussels, and anchovies that have been salted. The anchovies are salted the traditional way by layering them in barrels with salt, then filleted, and finally smoked. Mr Drazin also marinates and then fillets the chub mackerel, placing the fillets in jars with oil. This is not a common product, but it has proved to be popular. Another innovative item is cuttlefish cooked and diced and mixed with a sauce containing the ink. This started as an idea of Mr Drazin’s which was then developed into a formal recipe in collaboration with a technological institute and a chef. Packaged in a glass jar, the product is intended to be mixed with rice to prepare a quick yet tasty risotto. This is particularly popular with the upmarket restaurants and hotels, who are among the company’s main customers. Another unusual product is marinated saddled seabream (Oblada melanura), which is filleted and then packaged in jars with oil. With these products Mr Drazin is adding value to species that are relatively unknown encouraging consumers to discover preparations using varieties of fish and shellfish that are not commonly used. The lack of popularity of these species is partly because the volumes caught are not large. Mr Drazin can use them because he adds value and sells at a relatively high price.

Using regional, national, and international events to promote products

Some of the local restaurants buy directly from his store, but Mr Drazin also attends regional fish fairs and culinary events in Croatia to promote his products across the country. He has a contract with one of the large retail chains and, in addition, has been actively seeking out markets abroad. To this end he exhibited at fish international in Bremen a few years ago. The pandemic had an unmistakeable impact on the business as restaurants, a big group of his customers, were forced to close. To assist companies like this that were acutely affected by the restrictions induced by the virus, the municipality in Split provided an area so that firms from the area could display and sell their products directly to consumers. Like processors across Europe, Mr Drazin also opened a webshop in a bid to augment direct sales. The response was tepid with only a couple of sales a week, though this may also be because credit cards are not accepted. Now that the restrictions have been relaxed completely the webshop is no longer being promoted because the traditional business has started up again and Mr Drazin is concentrating on that. The restaurants in the area that he supplies are highly dependent on tourists and operate mainly during the season, once the season comes to an end the company shift its focus to restaurants in continental Croatia that tend to remain in business throughout the year, so that the typical fall in sales that comes in the winter season is manageable.

Brand stems from name of popular product

The company’s brand, PepeFiš, is the name of its flagship product, a pungent sweet pepper stuffed with a salted anchovy and stored in olive oil. The combination of sweet and sour, heat, salt, and oil is a memorable one and the product is one of several that incorporate vegetables and herbs, many of which Mr Drazin cultivates himself, such as olives and capers. By combining traditional products with new ingredients and by developing products from uncommon fish species, Mr Drazin has carved out a rewarding niche for himself.

Živko Dražin, the founder and owner of Riba Drazin, a producer of high-end seafood products.

Riba Drazin

Biskupa Frane Franica 78 21214 Kaštel Kambelovac Croatia

Tel.: +385 92 102 8065 zivko.drazin@st.t-com.hr www.riba-drazin.com. Activity: Processing fi sh and seafood Volumes: Anchovy and sardine 4 t; seabream 2 t; octopus 2 t Employees: 10 (of which processing 6, sales 2, accountant 1) Brand: PepeFiš Markets: Croatia, Slovenia Turnover: EUR350,000