According to the project manager, in order not to be disgraced, years are needed, until we can achieve high quality and export again
Two or three years ago when the Cabinet encouraged cheese producers, “We are creating a brand Armenian Cheese, invest, and let us start exporting cheese,” the businessmen engaged in that field thought that their produce would soon be in international markets. However, the cheese producers’ excitement was short-living, only 2 batches were exported to Russia, then the project Armenian Cheese ceased and as the cheese producers say, it didn’t go beyond the brand’s logo and website – the project was called into question.
“We showed twice that one could guarantee both quantity and quality, but one needed a mature system, organized work, in order to work regularly and continuously. We put great effort, found a man, we said: ‘Please take our cheese.’ But one cannot ask Russian businessmen all the time to take our cheese, because it is good. We did those things for the beginning and it was quite successful, but the project wasn’t continued,” Armen Gigoyan, the president of the Union of Cheese Producers, said during a conversation with us. In response to our question what the reason for not continuing the project was, Mr. Gigoyan couldn’t give a clear answer, stating that it was the explanation of the Cabinet that they couldn’t guarantee high quality. The president of the Union also admits that there really are problems in the field from getting high-quality milk to technology, but when the project was under way, and they engaged in marketing abroad, besides that, one needed the Cabinet’s assistance to fix the problems: “It is a problem to ensure that milk remains clean from the teat to the
factory. And we don’t have so many farms to ensure necessary quality for so much milk – this problem should be solved. Only as a result of that complex work could export be continuous. Working systematically was serious motivation to ensure not artificial, but real competition in the internal market, and the others would have tried to reach the quality of the exporters.” Robert Harutyunyan, the director of the Armenian Development Agency, gave a set of reasons for the discontinuation of Armenian Cheese during a conversation with Aravot. “The project was not approved, because, guess, we had advertised the project, we had had serious orders, we would have come to Armenia and found out that we couldn’t take those orders.” In response to our observation that besides that, one should have helped cheese producers fix problems and guarantee quality, Mr. Harutyunyan said that they had tried that too, they had invited a specialist from abroad who pointed out what should be done, but it had turned out that big financial investments were needed for that. According to the director, for those investments, they offered cheese producers low-rate loans of the Center for Development of Small and Medium Enterprises. Then it turned out that a part of cheese producers had already taken out loans and another part of them didn’t want to take out loans etc. Then the agency found out that there was a problem with high-quality milk – taking buckets of milk from farmers didn’t guarantee high quality and farms were few.
According to Mr. Harutyunyan, working in parallel inside and outside will not prove good for continuing the project; firstly, one should solve the internal problems, in order that we are not disgraced outside because of low-quality cheese. “When we saw that we were ready to export Armenian cheese as an institution, we said to the Cabinet: ‘We are ready, let us understand what we take money for.’ The Cabinet said: ‘I will not give money for advertisement, I would rather give money, in order that you solve the problems in the field, regulate inside, then start to export.’ Now we have to put forward a project, discuss, and the Cabinet should work out a strategy,” the director of the agency assured. According to the director, for the moment, there are businessmen abroad who, although are not looking forward, wait for Armenian Cheese. According to Harutyunyan, one of the first steps to be taken to support the strategy and the project is farms engaged in milk production. This is why one needs investors who, the director assures, will be granted privileges, they just have to express willingness to start a business.
In response to our observation that such farms would bankrupt the other farmers, Mr. Harutyunyan said that farmers had also been offered to unite and establish cooperatives, in order that they produced high-quality milk, but there was no result yet. The project Armenian Cheese had a certain budget, in which cheese producers also invested. In response
to our question how that money had been spent, Mr. Harutyunyan said, “We put 3 million 170 thousand AMD, and almost the same amount was given by cheese producers. It was spent on the foreign specialist, buying packaging materials and shipping two batches of cheese. We don’t have financial payments or budget for Armenian Cheese for the moment.” Armenian Cheese will not be in the international markets in the next few years, because, as the director assured, many years are needed to solve the mentioned problems.
NELLY BABAYAN
