Dairy Dialog podcast 58: Interfood in Sofia
One of the six halls – The World of Milk – was dedicated to the dairy industry, and we spoke with Ivaylo Ivanov, general manager of the inter Expo Center, where the event took place, for an overview of the facility and the show; Taner Shahin, regional manager of the Destan dairy company; Albena Savova, marketing manager of DASF, which includes Dippack packaging; Valkan Todorov, owner of Slàmena, which makes a creamy buffalo milk yogurt, and to CEO of delishu, Nikolay Todorov; delishu makes a cashew based cream cheese alternative.
And we have our weekly update on the global dairy markets with Charlie Hyland from INTL FCStone.
Interfood
The four-day Interfood event includes six halls dedicated to various aspects of the food industry, one of which is The World of Milk. Others include Salon du Vin, Bulpek and Retail Show. There are tasting areas, an international pizza championship, culinary shows and presentations throughout the event.
More than 500 companies attend not only from Bulgaria, but also the US, Italy, Russia, Serbia, Lebanon, Turkey, Austria, Greece, The Netherlands, Finland and others, and the event attracts around 20,000 visitors from within the industry and members of the public.
Destan
Destan is one the largest dairy companies in the country, and has 85 farms in Bulgaria that supply cow, sheep and goat milk.
The company’s products include more than ten cheese varieties, cottage cheese and bakery products, which can be found throughout Bulgaria as well as in the UK, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Romania, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
DASF
DASF combines the chemical industry, electronics and engineering, in order to invest strategically and produce products in Europe and Asia. It is a leading provider of rigid and flexible plastic film solutions in the region.
Its Dippack brand specializes in plastic films (PS, PP and PET) and aluminum films, and packaging solutions.
It produces a variety of food industry packaging, manufactured through thermoforming and injection molding, including yogurt cups and ice-cream containers. It can also provide multi-colored printing on plastic packaging: cups, containers, lids, etc., as well as multi-colored printing on aluminum and coated aluminum film for cream, mayonnaise, fruit-flavored milk, etc.
Slàmena
Slàmena is a Bulgarian producer of buffalo milk and plain buffalo yogurt.
Its buffaloes graze in a mountainous area in the village of Borika at an altitude of 840 meters. The company has been in operation for five years, and sells its products in the Sofia area.
Its long shelf life yogurt took a gold medal at the Interfood event.
Delishu
Sofia-based Delishu is a cashew-based, cultured cream-cheese alternative that is 100% raw, vegan, pure and live product made with only four ingredients, and includes probiotic organisms.
The product, which is available in four different flavors currently, is sold in Bulgaria, Romania, Canada, Belgium, Spain and New Zealand. The company is expecting to expand its distribution, as it also makes private-label products.
Each package of the fermented product provides 58bn Lactobacillus bulgaricus, 65bn S. thermophilus, and 2bn Lactobacillus acidophilus.
