ThesGala is the dairy farmers’ cooperative that formed in the period of the economic crises. The payments to the distributors of milk and to the farmers were not paid in due time or not at all, the distribution channels and dealerships were collapsing. To survive they were forced to come up with a new business model. They found a way to preserve the highest quality of milk and to form logistic channels to sell their own fresh milk directly to consumers using milk vending machines in the city. Starting installing milk vending machines in the city of Larissa in 2013, the number increased to 16 outlets and extended to Thessaloniki in 2015 with 17 outlets. After winning a Greek innovation prize in 2016, Thes Gala set up its first vending machines in Athens. This innovative approach has been proven very popular, and the cooperative now supplies 63 vending machines in 3 cities, selling milk to approximately 25.000 customers every day. On the other side this has been implemented also in Slovenia and somehow did not stick. Why? Well, there has been no brand, although traceability was insured, no quality analysis to promote the produce and it was inconvenient to go to vending machine separately, when one can buy everything in the supermarket. Now since times had changed a bit also in Greece and the same consumer logic resides also in the mind of the Greek consumer ThesGala supplies also supermarkets and smaller shops keeping the standard of high quality milk.
Papayiannis bros is a family enterprise producing mainly sesame halva, a traditional sweet of the Levant, hugely popular in the whole Mediterranean region. The INNOGROW Group had the privilege of seeing production line, which is based primarily on manual production. Literary strong men are turning sweet mass of halva with their hands to get the perfect consistency and then the mass is filled into backing models, however it does not go to backing but to the fridge. End product may be a bit addictive for the ones with a sweet tooth and the taste of warm halva is simply sublime. Today, “PAPAYIANNIS BROS S.A.” produces a broad range of traditional food products based on sesame seeds (halva, tahini sesame paste, sesame bars, bakery sesame seeds), as well as other foods such as fruit jams, honey and loukoumi (oriental delight). Currently, the company has invested in a new fully automated production line for tahini with honey, which is considered as an innovative product itself.
Before I go to stakeholders from other INNOGROW partners’ regions let me write some honorable mentions of Greek study visit: Agroil - Staff Colour Energy, an industrial plant providing specialised services to the largest biodiesel companies; Tirnavos Cooperative one of the most well-known cooperatives in Greece, mainly for producing the notorious Greek spirit tsipouro; Olympos, one of the best examples of how an SME can be transformed to a large company by investing in innovation; and Epilektos Biogas with one of the biggest biogas power plants in Europe.
