017-Snapshot_B2B_conference.doc

PRISTINA, Kosovo — A first-of-its-kind B2B conference matched some of Kosovo’s top food companies with distribution companies across Europe owned by the small nation’s sizeable diaspora population. USAID, together with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, organized the April 25-26 event to open new export markets for Kosovo’s fruit and vegetable producers and processors.

The event drew roughly 20 Kosovar-owned food importers and distributors, based in Switzerland, Germany, Finland and elsewhere across Europe, as well as an equal number of domestic food companies. During and immediately following the meeting, participants struck 25 new or expanded export deals. The agreements cover everything from apples to peppers, and pumpkins to potato chips.

The business-to-business conference fostered linkages through one-on-one meetings. It also allowed importers to visit in person some of Kosovo’s most promising producers of jams, juices, preserves, relishes and other products.

“We believe you will see new opportunities—new opportunities to reach back and make sincere, long-lasting partnerships that will take the industry in Kosovo and your business forward,” Mark Wood, project director of USAID’s New Opportunities for Agriculture program, told the visiting delegates. USAID’s NOA organized the event jointly with the SDC’s Diaspora for Development project.

For Adiat Hajdari, manager of Ananas Impex, the conference represented a chance to land new markets in Sweden and Switzerland for his firm’s paprika and crushed pepper. While the firm already exports to Albania, added foreign sales should catalyze growth in capacity, employment and product diversity, Hajdari said. All three are among the goals of USAID’s NOA project.

Fadil Jakupaj came to the conference from Switzerland to secure a supply of pickled peppers, as well as renew previous agreements to import local wines. The owner of Alban Market, a Basel-based grocer and butcher, Jakupaj is always seeking to expand his offering of Kosovo imports. However, he recognizes the stiff competition Kosovo’s food industry faces as it rebuilds after its post-war collapse.

“That is what is missing—marketing. Consumers in Switzerland lack awareness of many of these products,” Jakupaj said. To address that problem, USAID has facilitated both private label production and test shipments of export product.

For example, Rizona, a Kosovo food processor, exported a single truckload of pickled peppers to Germany in 2010 as a test; this year, it will export 10 truckloads, company owner Bashkim Bytyqi said. The peppers are sold through Kelmendi GmbH, a distributor catering to Germany’s several hundred thousand Kosovars.

“They can absorb all we can produce,” said Bytyqi, whose firm also signed a new deal to export pumpkins to Switzerland on a trial basis.