site.btaSome 150,000 Tonnes of Canned Food Made in Bulgaria a Year, Down Ten-fold in 30 Years - Fruit and Vegetable Processors Union Head Kirovski

Around 150,000 tonnes of canned products are made in Bulgaria a year, Engineer Stoyko Kirovski, Chairman of the Union of Processors of Food and Vegetables (UPFV), told BTA here on Tuesday. In comparison, the production of canned products in Bulgaria amounted to some 900,000 tonnes in 1989.

He was among the official guests of the University of Food Technologies in Plovdiv for the first-ever marking of Bulgarian Canning Industry Day, April 3. 

According to him, the Bulgarian canning industry faces a combination of problems, one of which arose as early as in the 1990s. "A large part of the enterprises working during the period after the transition [to democracy] exported to Russia, but in 1998 the market collapsed due to the depreciation of the Russian ruble. The whole export oriented toward Russia practically stopped. We had to reorient ourselves toward the more capricious European markets, the markets in America, the Arab countries and Asia, where the requirements for products are much greater," Engineer Kirovski explained. The transition period deprived the branch of much time, which is among the reasons at the time for production volumes to drop drastically. 

As at today, the challenges facing canned food producers are related mostly to the lack of raw materials and workforce as well as the competition abroad, he added. The Bulgarian companies work mainly with Bulgarian fruit and vegetables, which decrease in quantity year after year, forcing the processors to shrink production volumes. The shrinkage is by more than ten-fold in 30 years. "Vegetables, in particular, are not enough for our canning companies," Engineer Kirovski commented.

According to him, the canning industry's significance decreases ever more.