Growing a company, expanding production lines, improving products and developing new ones is the goal of seventeen Kosovo food processing and confectionary companies that participate in the “Coaching for Growth” program by CEED Kosova. On 26 September 2018, representatives of these companies visited the Macedonian producer Vitaminka, as a learning and experience sharing activity.  

“Seeing firsthand how a similar company works, the challenges they face and solutions they find helps other to better understand their situation, assess the market, and improve the strategy, performance and practices”, says Kreshnik Lleshi of CEED Kosovo that organized the visit.

The group from Kosovo visited Vitaminka’s production line of several types of cookies and met with the senior management of the company to learn more about their history, vision, production, and in particular new product development and expansion into new markets.

Bujar Istrefi, general manager at Missini, said the visit was very useful, especially the company chosen for this study tour. “The visit gave us an opportunity to see firsthand how seriously this company deals with operations, sector division, and how they have arranged space for each production line,” Istrefi said. For him, the discipline, the hygiene measures in place, and processes were impressive and “it provided the right impetus to explore opportunities so that we also invest in more sophisticated machinery”.

The “Coaching for Growth” program is a specially designed 9-month program for food processing and confectionery companies in Kosovo to support them to improve and develop products and increase capacities. It is supported by the Promoting Private Sector Employment project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and is implemented by Swisscontact and Riinvest Institute.