The successful family business today employs 18 people, has been growing for four years in a row, and in addition to being the main supplier to an international retail chain, it exports to Canada and the USA.
As part of fieldwork in the courses Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics , taught by Professor Zrinka Gregov, M.Sc. , a group of our students visited the Ogulin family company Sigurna hrana, which our alumni Sebastijan Glavić brought to the international market through thoughtful marketing activities.
This is a former family business that was started and developed by our colleague's father and mother, and later Sebastijan and his brother continued the family tradition and gradually modernized the company with their IT and entrepreneurial knowledge, which is today synonymous with high-quality and natural sauerkraut, which they market under the Jelenko brand.
Sebastijan je na VERN’u prvo završio prijediplomski studij Ekonomije poduzetništva i tada je počeo preuzimati marketing tvrtke, a trenutno je apsolvent na diplomskom studiju Poduzetničkog menadžmenta, na kojem je stekao znanja za internacionalizaciju poslovanja i profesionaliziranje menadžmenta.
Through continuous investment in people and machinery, the company has been growing by around 20 percent annually for four years in a row, and with 18 employees, they plan to produce between 600 and 700 tons of sauerkraut this year. They are also the main supplier to Lidl under the Okusi zavičaja brand, and they export this excellent product under the Jelenko brand to Canada and the USA.
"Due to the quality and meeting the highest international standards for food quality, we have inquiries from large retail chains from Western Europe. However, such large orders require very large investments in new halls, pickling pools, warehouses and machines for production automation, so we are careful not to allow too rapid and risky growth. In addition to high-quality cabbage, only water and salt are used for pickling, and everything else is done by beneficial lactic acid bacteria, so this sauerkraut is also the highest quality natural probiotic that falls into the category of so-called 'healthy food'," they explained to us.
The production facilities were visited by 32 students from the graduate study program in Entrepreneurial Management and three students from the Erasmus semester. Since Sigura hrana is VERN's partner company, the visit was also attended by Nataša Jeličić , head of the #EducationmeetsBusiness cooperation project with the economy.
At the end of the visit, our students received promotional packages of the company's products, in order to best generate and test ideas for new products and services, which is the practical part of the project assignment after the fieldwork.
During their visit to Ogulin, the students further exchanged opinions and impressions with our alumni and his father, with whom they discussed the most significant challenges in business, certifications and compliance with international standards, operating according to the requirements of a large international retail chain, and business ethics and the functioning of a family business.
Sebastijan concluded by telling his colleagues that the business knowledge acquired at VERN was the link that enabled the company's sustainable international growth. "When you pass the exam, you will forget the definition you knew by heart word for word, but the essence of what you learned and the way of thinking will remain with you for the rest of your life," he concluded.
