Cherkizovo Group speaks about building ties with foreign retailers

Cherkizovo Group, Russia’s largest meat producer, participated in the annual Russian Retail Week forum as a partner. As part of the event, Cherkizovo shared its experience of cooperating with foreign retail chains accounting for around 5% of the brand's total exports.

The anniversary 10th Russian Retail Week took place between May 27 and 30 at Moscow's World Trade Center and welcomed more than 8,000 guests including representatives of the government, federal and regional retail chains, marketplaces and sellers, leading FMCG manufacturers, as well as logistics, marketing, HR, IT, and media experts. This year, Cherkizovo became a partner of the FMCG & Retail Summit running on the sidelines of the forum.

Natalia Bartnovskaya, Head of Export Development at Trading Company Cherkizovo, was a speaker at the round table themed Export Opportunities: New Geography and Russian Brands. According to her, wholesale export remains key for the domestic meat producers. Several years ago, however, Cherkizovo started to grow sales of branded retail products to target export markets.

“We had a lot of work ahead of us, as cooperation with any foreign retailer actually meant creating a new product. Every importing country has its own requirements for packaging, labelling and composition, among other things. This is why we had to adapt our brands and products to meet such requirements in every market and even develop new trademarks for some of them,” said Natalia Bartnovskaya. Today, retail sales account for some 5% of Cherkizovo's exports, and the Company plans to ramp up them going forward.