KIM Celebrated 50th Anniversary of Operations

With an investment of 27 million euros over the past 10 years since Lactalis took over KIM Dairy Karlovac through the Dukat group, this Karlovac dairy, currently employing 125 people, has become the largest producer and exporter of long-life milk within the Dukat group, the leading dairy industry in Croatia, mentioned Andrea Bušić, director of KIM Dairy Karlovac, at the ceremony held on Friday to mark the 50th anniversary of KIM’s establishment.

In 2017, KIM delivered 79,664 tons of milk to the market in various product forms and brands, which was an increase of 9.5 percent compared to 2016, and after obtaining an export number for EU countries in 2011, KIM expanded to seven EU countries – Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, and Greece, and by early 2018, it entered the markets of another seven countries outside the EU. Along with modernizing its facilities, KIM adopted the HACCP system, Kosher and HALAL certifications, IFS standards, and FSSC 22000 system standards.

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Founded on May 6, 1968, as a Milk Powder Factory within the Zagreb Dairy, this dairy-processing facility adopted the production of fermented products in the 1970s, changing its status to an independent company named under the “creative” influence of socialist industrialization as the Karlovac Dairy Industry. The effects of significant investments in modernization and capacity expansion in 1990 were abruptly nullified by the Homeland War, and KIM survived despite operating in reserve mode literally next to the barracks of the JNA in Gornji Mekušje. Unfortunately, in this celebratory mood, there was no room to pay tribute to all employees for their courage in coming to work in such an environment.

After “Storm,” KIM faced its worst misfortune in its recovery and the restoration of its cooperative network as a quality raw material base, which was the transformation and privatization “á la Croatia,” orchestrated by the Croatian Privatization Fund and its connections. After 13 years of agony, the destruction of the cooperative network, and financial collapse burdened by loans taken in the name of the Kutlina Globus group, KIM was taken over in 2008 by the French dairy giant Lactalis through Dukat.

After numerous investments, as well as strategic decisions within Dukat to relocate the production of fermented products and cheese to Zagreb and “Sirela” in Bjelovar, then Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor ceremonially opened the renovated KIM on September 15, 2010, adapted for the production of long-life milk, which also involved the introduction of “revolutionary” HDPE packaging, that is, high-density polyethylene bottles.

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As the then director of Dukat, Mate Zadro, had no answer on what to do with such packaging for which there was no, and still is not, a recycling system, today’s management of KIM states that they pay all levies regarding the costs of placing such packaging on the market and its disposal, and that this is no longer their problem, but rather a question for the Environmental Protection Fund as to why a system for the disposal and recovery of HDPE packaging has not been established in Croatia, as it is not compatible with the technology for recovering PET packaging, which has otherwise come to life in a para-social category of survival in Croatia.

Marija Vučković, State Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, stated that the situation for producers like KIM, as well as for its 3,110 cooperators, should soon significantly improve with the application of the amended Agricultural Land Act, and especially the Law on the Prohibition of Unfair Trading Practices in the Supply Chain, which should also result in a change in business relations between traders, milk processors, and cooperators as the real milk producers.