News
09.02.2010
Bulgaria's Potential Is Larger in Environmentally Preferable than in Genetically Modified Products
Bulgaria has a potential to develop and market environmentally preferable and healthy food products. As part of Europe, this country is more interested in producing such type of products than in staking on the production of genetically modified foods, Divil Kulev, Research and Analyses Manager at the NOEMA Market Research Agency, said in a BTA interview.
Both food industry companies and consumers themselves show interest in the development of wholesome and organic products, Kulev said. As far as consumers are concerned, a fairly large group of chronically ill and elderly people are interested in healthy products for purely physiological reasons, but they cannot afford to buy more expensive foods. Another consumer group interested in such products consists of people who do not have health problems but insist on a healthy and environment-friendly lifestyle. This market segment covers 10-15 per cent of Bulgaria's population and is particularly attractive to food industry companies, the expert said. Precisely those 15 per cent of Bulgarians are ready to pay more but be sure that they will get a wholesmome product, Kulev said.
"A large part of the surveys we are conducting now target precisely the development of projects for the supply of environmentally preferable products," he said. "Because the crisis, the market of environmentally preferable and high-quality products in Bulgaria has now contracted and stagnates, but it is precisely in this segment that companies can find their niche and reach European markets," Kulev commented.
Markting experts have found that companies which are new to the food industry have a niche precisely in the supply of environmentally preferable and health foods because the low-price segment for which many companies vie is already occupied. A winning strategy in the food branch is focussing on added value organic products, e.g. calcium-enriched milk or olive oil with curative effect on certain physiological problems.
"If genetically modified foods are cheap and can achieve a low production cost, they will be bought by pensioners and other low-income consumers," Kulev reasons. "On the other hand, the elderly are rather conservative and if companies are obliged to indicate the content of GMO on their product labels, people may well avoid such products unless they are extremely cheap," he commented.
In Europe, there is a growing demand for environmentally preferable products and if Bulgaria asserts itself as a producer fo such products, this would be a better idea than opting for genetically modified foods which require competition with major mass producers, the analyst said. Bulgaria can hardly become a mass producer of, say, maize but can produce environmentally preferable products for all Europe. Europe is the principal market of Bulgarian products and, unlike the rest of the world, Europe is far more conservative in respect of GMO, Kulev concluded. PK/LG
Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA)
