Georgian Dairy Goes International

Georgian Milk Mark Dairy Tsezari has become the first Georgian dairy producer to exhibit in two prestigious international trade fairs in the US and the Gulf. Tsezari has exported 165 tonnes since 2016 to the USA and Canada and is actively taking seeking new export opportunities.

The Rural Development Agency supported eight Georgian Producers to participate at the Saudi Agriculture International Trade Exhibition in Riyadh and six at the  ‘U.S. Private Label Trade Show’  where juice, nuts, water and tea products were showcased.  Tsezari Dairy Product Company was the only dairy presented at both exhibitions. The Georgian Milk Mark Federation part funded the company’s participation fee for the ‘U.S. Private Label Trade Show’.

‘I want to export cheese to the USA. This is my dream’ these were the words of Tsezari, a young man in his twentieth year, in 2011, when meeting members of the Alliances programme for the first time.  

Eco migrants from Ajara,  Tsezari the youngest in the family, started cheese making with the help of his mother, in an old cow shed in a village outside Tsalka town, selling the cheese in agricultural markets in Tbilisi and Batumi. He was buying milk from more than one hundred families, making him one of the largest regular buyers of milk in the region from farming families.

Currently, the company has two factories in the high mountains in Tsalka and Khulo. They produce Sulguni, Imeruli and Factory cheese as well as butter, matsoni, nagudi, and sour cream, and employs 20 local rural women and men. The company also has a popular shop in Batumi selling to hotels, shops, locals and tourists. The company collects thirteen tonnes of milk daily from eight hundred farmers living in Tsalka and Khulo municipalities and sells products in up to a 1000 outlets of Ori Nabiji, Daily, Will Mart, Billioni and Carrefour supermarket chains across Georgia.

Created in 2019, twenty-two dairies are currently using the mark and twelve are in the application process. GMM cheese is now available in twenty-four mainstream supermarket chains across Georgia. Information about each enterprise is uploaded on the www.georgianmilk.ge website, which allows consumers to look up the products they are buying using a unique registration number printed on the label.

See the link related to the topic:  MEPA.gov.ge; RDA.gov.ge