90 thousand euros has been invested in the project. Gunter Yashke, a fourth generation hereditary butcher from Austria, has been working as a distributor of spices and recipes for meat processing plants in Russia since 2000. The spice distributor opened small business in Petersburg at the end of the last year – manufacture of sausages and frankfurters under traditional Austrian and German recipes under the brand Gunter`s (LLC “Gyunters Myasnye Produkty”). “I am no longer able to see the quality of meat products sold in Russia”, says Gunter Yashke, who shares his impressions of the Russian sausages. The German Paulaner restaurant in the Park Inn hotel on Moskovsky Prospect offered him to do sausages.
“90,000 euros of his own savings was invested by the owners in the project,” said CEO Vasily Shpedt. On account of production capacities, it has been decided on outsourcing at two factories and one of them is Russo-Balt. “The recipes are absolutely the same as in Austria but from local raw materials and all the spices are made in Austria,” says Gunter Yashke. The production equipment allows to produce up to 5 tonnes of sausages daily, but the declared production capacity has not happened yet.
Sales inculcated in chain retail stores as premium products (“Azbuka vkusa”, “Super Babylon”) and in the segment HoReCa. Meat products are bought by hotels and some European consulates. Negotiations with the set “Metro Cash and Carry” have been carried on. Moreover, the products have already appeared on the market in the capital. The Austrian entrepreneur dreams to become one of the Subway suppliers because the chain uses many kinds of deli meats for sandwiches.
One of the exclusive products made by Gunter Yashke is hot smoked meat, which has not been made by local firms yet. “I am very sorry about the Russian market of processed meat,” says the entrepreneur. Local manufacturers have recently been leaving the market one by one. They cannot withstand the pressure of the retail chains, processes of optimization in connection with the rising euro and other problems.”
The businessman tells that he strictly complies with recipes in his manufacture and consequently does not wait superprofits from this business. “For example, I keep the meat in sea salt and spices for two weeks,” says the Austrian businessman, “an unthinkable thing for Russian processor. Freezing raw material means freezing money for a long period. Everybody here wants everything to happen very quickly … Entrepreneurs think that market conditions may change for the worse and consequently everything must be taken now …”. Nevertheless, business runs with profitability of 25%. The company employs 5 people and together with the distribution, logistics and accounting department on outsourcing – 14 employees.
As meat market participants say, the industry has still not fully recovered after the embargo since 2014 but meat producers have reacted to deficiency more operatively than others. For example, the city restaurateurs argue that meat is almost the only product that local suppliers managed to replaced by imports. However, many say that the market is monopolized, small companies are not many, and large suppliers dictate their terms of cooperation raising the prices regularly by 20—30% every three months. As a result, the price of meat and semifinished products continue to grow ahead of the rate of inflation both in retail and in HoReCa. Among the market leaders are Miratorg, Atria Russia (the brands KampoMos and Pit-Product).
Lilly Kuleshova, the commercial director of Super Babylon LLC in St. Petersburg, said that the local manufacturers did not replace the Spanish jamon, and to fully restore the assortment from the beginning of 2014 only by the Russian producers was impossible. Nevertheless, local companies not only expand production, but also develop new recipes including the use of elements from the European cuisine. A lot of products from Russian cities appeared in the assortment of retail networks. Companies from Moscow and the Moscow region are particularly active. For example, these are the brands Blizhnie Gorki, Ristol, Lebongout. They make pate, chicken and duck galantine, frankfurters, turkey sausages,” says Lilly Kuleshova. Retailers do not complain of the quality of domestic products but note that products with short shelf life gradually become unaffordable for the majority of customers.