Prime cut ZPM Biernacki

PRIME CUT

Biernacki Meat Processing Plant (ZPM Biernacki) is one of the leading Polish suppliers of beef meat – half carcasses, quarters, muscle, giblets and other beef parts, as well as recently added processed beef products available under the brand ‘BeefMaster’. Piotr Sadowski writes for Industry Europe.

Starting as a small company in 1993, whose basic activity covered the slaughter and de-boning of beef and pork, ZPM Biernacki has grown to become a large-scale factory where beef forms over 90 per cent of all meat being produced. While the Polish meat industry is on the one hand highly dispersed, with lots of small- and medium-sized meat factories operating on local markets, on the other hand around 80 per cent of the entire annual meat production in the country is concentrated within 8–10 market players. One such leading business is ZPM Biernacki.

“The company recently undertook a major business strategy change,” explains Tomasz Kubik, the president of the board. “We were mostly involved in preparing half carcasses, quarters and other beef elements, packaging them with vacuum technology and supplying to customers who would then process them individually under their own brands. This meant that we were nearly anonymous to the end consumers. Thus the change in our strategy has involved a major investment in building our own new brand and introducing a range of exceptional beefbased products.”

Launch of BeefMaster

The name of the new brand reflects the excellence in beef production which ZPM Biernacki has perfected over the years of its operations. “The creation of the new brand, in which we offer beef products packaged in ‘SKIN’ type vacuum technology, has been one of the key developments for the company,” says Mr Kubik. “It has involved significant investments, both capital into appliances and technologies, and strategic, such as establishing a sales network cooperating with wholesalers and retailers. As a factory which was previously supplying significantly to other meat processing plants, which used our beef as the basis for their own subsequent production, we have had to implement new logistical solutions, appropriate to working more with the distribution channels.”

Under the new brand, ZPM Biernacki has prepared a wide range of excellent products which, in most cases – such as bavettes, entrecotes, steaks, hamburgers, beef sausages and other offerings – contain

100 per cent beef. The fixed-weight slices of meat are packaged in ‘SKIN’ type vacuum technology; the product is first covered by film, subsequently placed on a tray and the tray itself is then further packaged, which ensures a longer consumption period. “One of the new product is beef carpaccio, made from a highest quality beef muscles, lightly frozen, then machine-cut and packaged in 160 grams package, which contains two 80 gram portions; the product also contains a specially-developed sauce and ParmigianoReggiano cheese,” explains the president of the board. “We also offer a range of beef cold cuts; veal frankfurters, which contains 40 per cent of veal rather than some products on the market which only contain 20 per cent of meat; beef ‘kabanos’ sausages; maturing beef; as well as two types of tripe.”

It is also important to point out that currently in Poland the average consumption of beef per consumer is very low, around 2 kg per head, per annum. This partly results from a lack of culinary tradition and knowledge on how to prepare beef for consumption. To challenge this, ZPM Biernacki has enrolled the patronage of one of Poland’s leading chefs, Grzegorz Cielecki, who is the country’s Captain of the National Chefs Representation. The chef creates easy-to-follow recipes for preparing different types of beef as well as helping to deliver training for other chefs, particularly in the HoReCa sector.

Ongoing growth

The factory is operating at 90 per cent capacity of its current processing slaughtering capability of around 700 cattle a day, and partitioning at 130–150 tonnes of meat, on a daily basis. This meat forms the basis for further processing and creation of

We are a young, developing company manufacturing cardboard packaging.

Our strategic aim is to achieve increasingly stronger position on the domestic market and maintaining a positive image of the company through perfect implementation of processes involved in cutting and assembling specific models of packaging from corrugated cardboard, and subsequently overprinting them.

We offer our customers a wide assortment of cardboard packaging, guaranteeing timely delivery and constant quality of products, because we treat customer satisfaction as a measure of quality of our products and a source of impetus for further development of the company.

We have a team of qualified employees and a modern machine park, thanks to which we can meet the high demands of the packaging market.

Excellent technical and manufacturing capabilities put us in a group of leaders of the packaging industry. Despite the fact that we have been operating on the market for only six years, we have already managed to gain support and trust of many strong companies, particularly in the meat industry across the whole of Poland, as well as in some European countries. With every year of operations our company strengthens its position on the market and exemplifies itself with the strong quality of manufactured products.

Phone: +48 517 232 780 E-mail: kartonix@kartonix.pl www.kartonix.pl

products. “In terms of our distribution markets, in addition to Poland, we have already been present on a number of EU markets, including France, Italy, UK, Germany, Spain and Denmark,” says Mr Kubik. “With the creation of our new brand and delivery of a whole range of new products, we undertook important steps to further strengthen our position in these mature and very demanding European markets. This has proved to be a very successful route for further growing our business and expanding the operations.” In order to meet the growing demand for Polish beef, ZPM Biernacki is focusing on further strengthening its output capacity, both in terms of cattle slaughter and partitioning of meat. This is absolutely necessary to ensure a stable supply of source meat for products available under the ‘BeefMaster’ brand.

Despite a negative situation on the market, the company is achieving very good results, with sales having risen threefold between 2009 and 2011, and with customers in all of the enterprise’s distribution channels being highly satisfied with the offering. “In Poland our two main areas of sales are, as previously explained, wholesalers and retail networks, with other processing plants forming a decreasing area of our distribution activities,” adds Mr Kubik. “In EU markets we mainly provide packaged parts of beef to other processing companies; nevertheless we are also looking to start expanding the ‘BeefMaster’ brand. In export markets, such as Turkey, Iran, Uzbekistan, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other countries, we mainly supply processed elements as well as beef quarters, though our new brand is also promising to have an important sales potential in this geographical region. In Arab countries too we are seeing particularly strong opportunities. Most importantly, the company will continue to grow organically in order to optimise the use of all our currently available resources, as well as those being further expanded.” n