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Gaining
Competitive Advantage by implementing Food Standards
 Bonum
Plus was founded in 1992 as a small family based
private enterprise for production and processing
of mushrooms and vegetable processing. Today,
Bonum Plus has the largest facilities for
production and processing of mushrooms in
Macedonia. In addition to the largest production
line in Macedonia for roasted peppers, homemade
ayvar and lutenica. Annual output of the
enterprise amounts to 3,500 MT of final
processed mushroom and vegetable products.
The company is committed to permanent
development of new products as well as
processing facility and product quality
improvement due to increasingly stringent
foreign and domestic market food safety
requirements, the need for increased
productivity and cost competitiveness and the
need to improve marketing and management
practices.
Bonum Plus is one of the five vegetable
processing companies that receives support for
its proposed business expansion project and has
been awarded a grant from USAID’s AgBiz Program.
AgBiz has been helping Bonum Plus to enhance its
export competitiveness for more than two years.
During this period Bonum Plus successfully
implemented HACCP system and accelerated
progress in receiving ISO22000 certification for
the company’s processing and storage facility.
 The
strong commitment in practicing strict quality
control, good manufacturing practice was
essential for Bonum Plus to sustain its market
share on the Serbian market and enabled the
company to achieve new distribution and
increased exports up to 15% in Serbia. AgBiz
contributed towards this process by co-funding
market entry into various regional and
international chains in Serbia, such as Delta
and by supporting Bonum Plus marketing
activities aiming for better visibility and
shelf positioning of their branded product. In
2009 Bonum initiated the development of an
investment plan for building a cold store
facility with an objective to further expand
export capacity on both regional and
international markets.
As a result of the successful implementation of
the business expansion project Bonum increased
employment opportunities in the Staro Nagoricane
municipality by opening 90 new permanent
employment opportunities.
“Our goal is continuous growth through
application of quality and food safety standards
such as ISO22000, and achieving high customer
satisfaction. We will continue to adapt to our
customers’ needs in our desire to re-main a top
quality producer. Now, hav-ing USAID and its
Agribusiness Program support our vision will be
ac-complished sooner!” said Mr. Momchilo
Ivanovski, owner of Bonum Plus.
Acknowledging the past history of this lead-ing
vegetable processing company and ex-ceptional
potential for further expansion, AgBiz is
providing continuous support to Bonum plus in
enhancing its capacity for competition. To date,
AgBiz supported Bo-num to participate in several
study tours to increase knowledge of EU market
require-ments regarding packaging, quality,
declara-tion and food-safety standards at “Tutto
Foods” in Italy; to enhance understanding of
ways to utilize EU funding in Bulgaria; to
improve knowledge of advanced processing
technologies in Turkey; and to find new markets
in Sweden.
In addition and again with AgBiz support, Bonum
Plus exhibited their products in the US on the
Chicago Fancy Food Show and Anuga and Novi Sad
Trade Fairs in Germany and in Serbia
respectively, to boost interna-tional sales. The
latest presentation of their products was in
Croatia to HORECA mar-kets.
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