SRFP Blog

Boki Food – a successful company in central Serbia producing quality canned fruits and vegetables

A Monday in August isn’t the best time to find the owner of Boki Food, he’s busy with buying fruit and vegetables from his cooperating grower farmers. If you do find him, the wait is worth it. Dejan Joksimović and his son, Lazar, operate the Boki Food company in the farming community of Donja Toponica, 10 minutes west of the bustling town of Prokuplje, two hours south of Belgrade.

Boki Food processes a wide-variety of agricultural-based products. In the canning part of their operation, they produce various types of compotes and jams made from strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, peaches, etc. In addition to this, they can ajvar, peppers, hot peppers, mushrooms, beets and cucumbers. Altogether, Boki Foods cans 37 different products for the wholesale and retail market which end up on the Serbian, Italian, Bosnian and other region’s markets. Boki Food is HACCP certified and has received a number of awards at various fairs.

The Prokuplje area is ancient even by European standards, tracing its first inhabitants to the Neolithic age. From 5200-4650 BC, the second oldest copper smelting site in the world was discovered. Copper smelting spread to the rest of the world from this area.

Between 73-75 BC, after the Romans defeated the tribes of the region, the settlement became known as Hammeum or Hameo, which then was located on a road that connected the central Balkans with the Adriatic, passing though Naissu (present day Niš). Prokuplje today is covered with roman ruins of all types.

Boki Foods cooperates with 200 farmers in the Toplicki and Jablanicki districts of south-southwest Serbia to supply their fruits and vegetables. Every year more farmers selling to them, some coming from other cold storages. Boki Foods are dedicated to their cooperating farmers. In good years and bad, Mr. Joksimović buys from his established farmers in order to maintain that relationship and to preserve supply lines.

Boki Food’s cold storage can hold 200 tons and freeze 10 tons a day of agricultural products.

Owner Dejan Joksimović and his son, Lazar, standing in the canned foods production facility which can produce 3 tons of canned products a day.

Finished, canned products, waiting to be shipped out to wholesale and retail buyers. Boki Foods production facility operates year around.

The company was founded in 1994, working out of a local market started by his grandfather. At the beginning, Boki Foods was a buying station for agricultural and forest products. In 1997, they built a fruit and vegetable dryer. In 1999, they expanded into coffee processing and packaging of granular and powdered products. 2002, Boki Food advanced its focus into producing canned fruits and vegetables. 2004, they built their first cold storage and the company started buying berries. 2007, Boki Foods expanded its list of products into the homemade roasted pepper (ajvar) market. 2009, they introduced the production of jams and compotes. 2019, they built a new, much larger, cold storage.

Prokuplje Region at a Glance

  • 44,419 inhabitants
  • Prokuplje is 30 minutes from Nis, a larger economic hub for the south Serbia region with 260,237 inhabitants
  • Region produces apples, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, corn and small dairy farms
  • Manufacturing, wholesale/retail trade, health care and social work are primary employers
  • Prokuplje is 259 kms from Belgrade, 169 kms from Macedonia, 141 kms to Bulgaria
  • 30% unemployment rate

Boki Foods built the operation up step-by-step, not growing too fast. They started off with a smaller cold storage supplied by a USAID program back in 2004, in the past few years built a bigger cold storage which can handle 200 tonnes, which can freeze 10 tonnes per day. At their current level of output, they can process 3 tonnes of canned products a day for the wholesale and retail market. In most times, they have 150 tonnes of products ready to ship. With the size of facilities now, they can operate throughout the year and are not limited seasonal output or the capacity of the facility.

Mr. Joksimovic’s wife attended a training held by Eduka Plus, the local training partner for the Developing of Financial System in Rural Areas in Serbia Program (SRFP), financed by the German Development Bank (KfW). Mr. Joksimovic’ has a second son attending the Faculty of Technology in Novi Sad, Serbia, to be a food technologist.

Regarding further capacity building for his business, Mr. Joksimovic’ is more concerned about his cooperating farmers. He believes it’s a mistake not to have more training for his fruit producers. Technical trainings on how to grow raspberries and blackberries, maintain fruit orchards and similar trainings in this field are greatly needed and would be appreciated.