SMARTER Proposes the Establishment of a Committee for Agricultural Product Marketing

While we are still working on the Agricultural Development Strategy until 2030, it may be useful to consider the proposal from Smarter’s experts regarding the establishment of a committee for agricultural product marketing that would be linked to the Ministry of Agriculture. This consulting company, led by Denis Matijević, believes that such a body should be multidisciplinary, composed of experts outside the Ministry, as well as professionals within the Ministry, and that it should develop a market entry strategy for domestic agricultural and food products, implement targeted actions, and brand agricultural products that would be recognizable to consumers.

Indeed, they remind us that attempts have been made to market domestic products, for example, with labels such as 'Meat from Croatian Farms' or 'Milk from Croatian Farms', but they emphasize that these projects are still not fully market-oriented, 'nor have the advantages of consuming such meat or milk been fully explained to end consumers'.

Even today, Croatia has a number of products that have either a sign of origin or a protected geographical indication, but insufficient investment is made in their promotion. This also indicates that targeted investments are not being made in such production, nor in opening new markets, so far, they emphasize in Smarter, 'our protected products have ended up as local rarities that producers mainly sell at their doorstep'. Likewise, they note that within the Croatian Agency for Agriculture and Food, there are already certain organizational forms that deal with marketing, 'but this approach is not comprehensive and cannot meet the marketing needs of Croatian agriculture'.

– The task of the future committee should primarily be the program for creating a brand for Croatian food, as we can derive significant benefits from this brand as a tourist country. This brand should embody the key values that food production in Croatia represents and carries, and these should be the foundation of communication with the market. The Croatian domestic product should be marked with a special common design – the well-known Croatian red and white squares that would permanently symbolize the origin of products in foreign markets – is the proposal from Smarter’s experts. 

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