Steaks, hamburgers or stews are dishes loved by many Lithuanians, the production of which is unimaginable without high-quality beef. The commercial director of a family business that supplies meat says that Lithuanians increasingly understand the benefits of good and high-quality meat. The increasing demand for beef forced not only to increase production capacity, but also to find ways to ensure that fresh meat could be enjoyed by more and more people.
The history of “Agar” began back in 1991, when the company was founded by Leta and Petras Vainorai. Over the years, the small butcher shop has grown into a family business of meat production meeting international standards, which is currently managed by the second generation of the family. “Agaras” takes care of an uninterrupted production chain every day – it buys cattle from Lithuanian farms, slaughters them, matures the meat, cuts it and prepares the products for customers”, says Daina Butėnė, director of “Agaras” commercial.
According to her, “Agaras” did not grow overnight – the business, which spans more than three decades, was built gradually.
“Everything started very primitively – with a simple small slaughterhouse. Later, we noticed great interest in the product outside of Lithuania as well – we started transporting beef to Riga, for the well-known brand “Rigas Miesnieks”. We realized that we needed to increase our capacity because we could no longer meet the needs of our customers, so we built a bigger slaughterhouse. We currently export our products to more than 20 countries in the European Union”, D. Butėnė tells about the beginning of the business.
More and more people understand what quality beef is
“Agar” can be called the pioneer of dry-aged beef and pork in Lithuania – the company was the first in the country to dry-age meat industrially, i.e. not in household aging chambers. This ensured that Lithuanian residents could enjoy high-quality and tasty meat.
“Lithuanians learned about the benefits of high-quality beef quite recently – even seven or eight years ago, a very small part of the people knew what aged beef, steaks, and how to prepare them were. We notice that over the past six years, the number of people who understand about a quality product and are looking for it has increased significantly,” says the commercial director of Agaras.
She emphasizes that a decade ago there was a stereotyped opinion in society that beef is dry, hard and tasteless meat, but now consumers not only willingly purchase this meat, but also prioritize its quality and are interested in its origin.
“Consumers are constantly increasing, for whom the origin of the product and the entire production chain are very important. Buyers want to know the conditions under which the cattle were kept and raised. There is also a growing number of active people for whom a healthy and balanced diet is important, and beef is one of the best sources of animal protein. That’s why more and more people choose beef for their daily food”, asserts D. Butėnė.
The biggest challenge for online shopping is the issue of transportation
As consumer demand increased, the company had to think not only about how to prepare a sufficient amount of products, but also how to transport them so that quality aged beef reaches as many people as possible.
“Our products can be found in physical stores of large retail chains, but after noticing a great demand for meat, we started developing the idea of online shopping. It materialized when we found a way to transport meat in a disposable container that maintains the required temperature for up to 36 hours,” says D. Butėnė.
She adds that for some time the product was delivered with a disposable container that maintains the required temperature, but when the delivery process took more than 36 hours. there was a very high probability of product failure.
“We approached the parcel transportation company DPD and asked if they were planning to work with goods that require a temperature regime, because even single-use temperature-regulating containers are quite expensive, so we were looking for ways to streamline the process more efficiently.” This is how we witnessed the launch of the DPD Fresh service – we worked together with DPD for a long time, consulting and discussing what the challenges might be. Then we helped to carry out the tests, we tested whether the temperature does not change during the transportation”, says V. Butėnė.
She adds that DPD Fresh has helped ensure that customers who don’t have time to go to the store or can’t find the right product can order it online and get it just as fresh straight to their home the next day.
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– 2024-03-28 14:34:58
