President Putin Has Ordered Supporting Regional Brands – Practice Sharing from the Smolensk Region

President of Russia Vladimir Putin has charged the Ministry of Agriculture to submit proposals for supporting the regional food brands until October, 1. The document has been hosted on the official website of the Kremlin. Similar project for supporting regional producers has been drafted in 2018 at the initiative of Governor Alexey Ostrovsky.

The goods manufactured by the Smolensk producers are represented in large federal retail stores under the Smolprodukt brand.

As an umbrella brand, Smolprodukt unites 30 producers and over 250 product items (such as confectioneries, dairy products, canned meat and vegetables, flour, cereals, drinks, groceries, birch charcoal).

At present, the regional farmers and food producers face the sale problem which is rather acute. Most often local producers lack logistics capabilities, skilled professionals or experience in operating electronic document management system, which prevents them from entering large retail chains with the goods manufactured. The concept of umbrella branding serves to resolve this problem. The Smolprodukt-branded products are currently sold in Magnit retail stores, regional chain of Oblpotrebsoyuz, Varnitsa retail network. In July canned meat, vegetables and fruits under the Smolproduckt trade mark will go onsale in 156 Pyaterochka stores of the Smolensk Region.

Approach to cooperation chosen by the Smolensk brand, is aimed to minimize the advertising and marketing costs of the food producers for promoting their goods, thus ensuring not only steadily growing income, but also providing possibilities for following a strategic pattern of production growth for 3 and more years.