Dr. Oetker is a company that has been nurturing tradition, family values and the warmth of home cooking for more than 130 years, while at the same time monitoring and serving the needs of the modern consumer. In its product creation process, this company has an unwavering commitment to do everything to satisfy the needs of consumers
For this CorD Magazine special edition, we discuss the habits and desires of customers, product range expansion, new products, environmental responsibility and the improvement of the company’s organisational culture with its MD, Sanjin Laganin, who has been with the company for more than a decade and at its helm for a year and a half, making him the perfect Dr. Oetker. interlocutor.
Despite your products being closely associated with the warmth of home and traditional family values, you don’t overlook the needs of modern consumers. How did your “ready to eat” and “ready to prepare” product lines emerge?
– Customers are always in the focus of the operations of Dr. Oetker. We monitor the habits and expectations of consumers who have placed their trust in us for years and who recognise the high quality of Dr.
Oetker products, thanks to which we know that there is ever more demand for products that are prepared quickly and easily. That’s why I’m proud to point out that we conceived our latest innovation, “Quick and Easy Polenta”, locally, from start to finish. This delicious meal, created without chemical processes or additives, takes just one minute to prepare, without cooking!
We also created Vitalis cereal bars. These tasty bars contain wholegrain cereals, which makes them an excellent source of fibre and a great source of energy.
For us, organisational culture equates the importance of what we do with the way we do it. It is essential for such an approach to doing business to improve our leadership and communication skills
We are actively working on the development of new products at our development centre, so you can expect more new arrivals from the Dr. Oetker kitchen soon.
In the competition for profits and conquering new markets, we often forget that which is most important: people and nature. However, that is not the case with your company. Are you aware of your special responsibility?
– As a socially responsible and environmentally aware company, Dr. Oetker manages all of its processes in a way that advances environmental protection. We are conscious of the special responsibility that we have towards people and nature. That’s why we launched the Sustainability Charter globally in 2020, which includes a total of 27 projects that are being implemented by our interdisciplinary, domestic and international teams. The goals are grouped into three segments: the food we produce; the world around us; and our company.
That’s because we want to achieve climate neutrality, use fully recyclable packaging and switch to renewable energy sources. We will invest significant resources in improving the nutritional profiles of our products by reducing salt, sugar and fat content by up to 20%, while we also have the goal of reducing the amount of food waste by 25% by the end of 2025.
What are your priority plans for the years ahead?
– Advancing our organisational culture is one of the primary goals. We launched this process last year and will work on it continuously. For us, organisational culture equates the importance of what we do with the way we do it. It is essential for such an approach to doing business to change ourselves as individuals, to improve our leadership and communication skills. The transparency of the process, the inclusion of all stakeholders in the decision-making process, as well as meritocracy, serve to create a healthy working environment. These changes result in innovative products, good relations with customers and suppliers, and satisfied consumers.
Digitalisation is the next goal, and it implies the utilising of existing infrastructure and the improving of all processes in order for us to make the best possible decisions on the basis of the data we collect and the reports we compile.