Gostol’s bakery solutions Gostol

He said, “Eastern European markets were very protected, with the market share of these companies very high, but they had never learned how to fight when competition came along as they hadn’t needed to. Over the past ten years, everything has changed; companies have tried to modernise, to keep their high market share. But unless they’ve been totally open-minded about turning themselves around to be able to effectively compete with global giants like Nestle and Mondelez, they fail.”

Failure was never an option for Knjaz Milos and Bambi. With the former founded in 1811 and the latter in 1989 and with a combined turnover of €147m, both companies were committed to succeeding in the new market. Mr Boehi continued, “We are still local but we’re fighting against big players, large conglomerates...and we’re winning. We have an incredibly strong market locally and across South East Europe, where we’re the leading

player in Greece, Romania, most formerYugoslavian countries. We’ve got excellent growth potential too – we’ve defined our success and we can repeat it.”

Home of Plazma!

The product portfolios of Knjaz Milos and Bambi are also key to this impressive achievement. Knjaz Milos produces mineral water, carbonated soft drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages and, in December 2006, was the first Serbian company to obtain an ISO 22000 certification for food safety. Bambi produces biscuits and chocolates, including the famous Plazma biscuits. Mr Boehi explained more about Bambi’s smart strategy. He said, “We produce confectionery that is very like the world’s leading brands, but made to suit local palettes and pockets. For the vast majority of large conglomerates in our markets, their products are sold locally at a high premium as they are not produced locally. But Bambi manufactures everything here in Serbia, using our excellent facilities and highly experienced workforce – we are very good and squeezing the potential out of our equipment so that we can produce a high quality at a low price.”

The clever thinking employed by Bambi to push its highly successful Plazma biscuit brand is set to play an important role in the company’s future growth. Mr Boehi explained how this simple, tasty sweet biscuit is firmly in the hearts of Serbian people, with Bambi working hard to deliver Plazma in new formats. Mr Boehi added, “We are keen to find co-partners to help utilise this exciting opportunity. We’re working on new packaging formats and new ways to present Plazma – in spreads, crumbles, milkshakes...everyone loves Plazma!”

Both Knjaz Milos and Bambi are enjoying phenomenal growth in export markets, with every third dollar the company makes coming from outside Serbia. Added to is continuing strong performance locally, it is a recipe for certain success. n

Gostol’s bakery line in Slovenia

GOSTOL’S BAKERY SOLUTIONS

Mr Matjaž Kompara, managing director of Gostol – Gopan d.o.o., Nova Gorica, Slovenija shares his views on the future of his company, one of the highly respected names in the bakery industry. Vanja Švačko reports.

Although founded in 1992, Gostol has a long tradition of machine building and casting, which started already in 1947. Today the company develops and manufactures equipment for the baking industries and is owned by joint-stock company Gopek d.d.

The headquarter and the main production facility, with 200 employees, is located in Slovenia, while the other one, where some parts are manufactured, is in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The long lifespan industrial bakery equipment is sold under the brand name “Gostol”. It includes equipment for dough preparing, dough dividing, dough moulding, and equipment for fermentation, baking, cooling and equipment, performed with robot solutions.

The company offers complete solutions for producing bread and bread products in medium and large sized industrial bakeries. Mr Kompara says, “Customers usually come to us with the specification of bread or bread products and the exact production capacity, they would like to achieve in their bakery. We offer them the benefit of our experience from the initial idea for the project to its realization, establishing a brand new bakery production line with sturdy constructed bakery equipment. More than 90 per cent of our turnover is realized with such projects.”

In search of complete solutions

Complete solution is the key attribute that distinguishes Gostol - Gopan d.o.o. as a reliable supplier on today’s rapidly changable market. In its search for the combination of energy saving and good quality construction, the company came up with new generation of cyclothermic tunnel baking oven type TPN. It is functional, easy to control, requires low maintenance and a great energy saver.

A lot of research has also been done on industrial dough dividers which are crucial machines in the entire bakery line. In an attempt to offer optimal solutions, the company uses many experiences. They are gathered from different markets and regions, where the production technologies, or bread types, usually vary.

“Highlights of last year’s R&D are two great novelties. The first one is a robotised composition for dough preparation “Robomix”. Its flexibility allows the use of different technological procedures of dough preparation, taking into account all the technological requirements written in the product recipe. There are other high-quality features such as regulation of temperature and moisture of the pre-dough and dough, easier maintenance of equipment etc.

“The second one is the bakery equipment for vacuum depanning and tin bread moving, for capacities up to 5.500 kg/h. The main advantage of the device is that machine can handle different kind of bread, which are performed with different bread surfaces, and different kind of seeds,” explains Mr Kompara.

The company also offers complete client’s support, starting from; proposing the most optimal solution for bakery production, continuing with equipment construction, bakery equipment production, assembling, delivery and putting into operation and finally with training of operational staff. Gostol – Gopan d.o.o. stays in on line contact with customers for after sales support and delivery of spare parts.

Market expansion

At Gostol they are aware of great challenges for future in the bakery business.

Proactive investments policy is one of the strategies to meet modern market demands.

“Last year we worked to renovate the production facilities, to organise and centralise the main storage and to ensure better