ORGANIC JELLY CANDY WITH FREEZE DRIED BERRIES

Background: The Estonian company Chaga Oy and Latvian company Ltd BIORGANIK5 are working in the field of natural and organic products for health and beauty. Both companies are innovative companies looking forward to new product development and product innovations. That is reason why the product ORGANIC JELLY CANDY WITH FREEZE DRIED BERRIES will be developed under the Estonia Latvian Crossborder Cooperation Programme. The main objective of the project is development of a new organic product for healthy lifestyles, based on common knowledge of Estonia and Latvia enterprises and research institutions, strengthening the entrepreneurial cooperation among Estonia and Latvia and increseaing the share of more jointly developed products in the programme area. Since September 2015 the companies started to draft the product idea and resarch the need for such a product in the Baltic countries and target markets in Germany. The strengh of Chaga Oy is new product innovations and marketing knowledge and the strengh of Ltd BIORGANIK5 is project management and communication. That is reason why companies decided to co-work and co-develop new organic jelly candy with freeze dried berries. The newly-developed product ORGANIC JELLY CANDY WITH FREEZE DRIED BERRIES is quite a unique product for the target markets. Eco food products is a growing trend in Europe and world in general. The latest scientific articles and market research have proved the perspective of organic product development, particularly food products with the limitation to healthy snacks, candies and sweets. There is a growing demand in Europe for organic products due to increasing trend of organic food consumption and increasing need to consume organic products due to health issues. Limitation to organic jelly candy with freeze dried berries was chosen dues to two main reasons. Firstly, the innovative technology of freeze dried berries is the strength of Estonian company Chaga Oy, company utilize the freeze dried technology for the beery processing thus this is strong competitive advantage of Chaga Oy and added value to newly-developed products. Secondly, organic jelly candy is having a growing market potential as the healthy snack for teenagers, children and adults with specific health problems, e.g. skin diseases, allergy, asthma, gastrointestinal problems, diabetes second type. We would like to combine the organic aspect with healthy snack and innovative technologies thus the organic jelly candy with freeze dried berries is a unique product. The target markets defined by both companies are Germany as international market; Latvia and Estonia as domestic markets. The product marketing activities are planned for Germany, Latvia and Estonia. We have chosen the Germany because there is growing demand for organic products and customers are used to high pricing policy in the organic food sector. Objective: The objective of the project is the development of a new organic product for healthy lifestyles, based on common knowledge of Estonia and Latvia enterprises and research institutions , thus increasing the more jointly-developed products and services in the programme area. The main activities: To achieve this objective there are 4 basic activity pillars: 1. Project management; 2. New product development; 3. Marketing activities; 4. Communication and project result dissemination. The activities are logically arising from project management cycle. Cross-border nature: The project objective cannot be efficiently reached acting only on a national/regional/local level as companies itself need more intellectual resources and know-how for new product development. The open innovation process sources will be allied by both companies plus additionally we will utilize the open innovation capacity and know-how of Research Institutions. Also the severe competitiveness on local level is obstacle for development whereas acting on cross-border level is removing these obstacles as companies are motivated to co-develop new product and long-term cooperation. Partners will expand the market and business focus and thinking paradigm from local to more global. At the moment Biorganik5 is operating mostly in Latvia thus this will be the benefit to start operating internationally and across borders in Estonia. Chaga Ou is also looking for new markets and this will be benefit for Estonian company as well. The new business focus and more global thinking will be strong benefit. The healthy lifestyles and increased input into well-being is the main gain for programme area as well as strengthening entrepreneurial activity. The new product and both companies will promote the healthy lifestyles on parallel with new product and organic food producers’ culture across borders in target markets.< Added value is also knowledge and experience accumulated so far by both Partner SMEs in the field of natural and organic product development. Chaga Ou is already expanding their entrepreneurial activities abroad and export products, thus this export experience could help Latvian company and also commonly developed product become more competitive. There is already great gain from cooperation during Idea Form development – Biorganik5 products from aloe vera will be exported to Estonia and via versa Chaga Ou products will be represented in Latvia. This is already mutual gain from cross-border cooperation. This cross-border cooperation will be as an example for other Latvian and Estonian companies for collaboration and knowledge exchange.

The Estonian company Ltd Chaga and Latvian company Ltd BIORGANIK5 are working in the field of natural and organic products for health and beauty. Both companies are innovative companies looking forward to new product development and innovations. The objective of the project was to develop new organic product for healthy lifestyle, based on common knowledge of Estonian and Latvian enterprises and research institutions, strengthening the entrepreneurial cooperation among Estonia and Latvia and increasing the share of more jointly developed products in the programme area. The newly-developed product Wild Candy or organic jelly candy with freeze dried berries is quite a unique product for the target markets. The latest scientific articles and market research have proven the perspective of organic product development, particularly food products with the limitation to healthy snacks, candies and sweets. As defined by project implementers, there were 23 steps taken to come to the final product. These steps included meetings with producers of the test candies, generation of the name of the candy, tasting events of the test candies in Estonia and Latvia, participation in fairs in Germany, Estonia and Latvia, 70% juice candy tests, creation of the packaging and concluding event with ready Wild Candy presentation.

Jointly implemented cross-boarder activities and cooperation developing 1 new product and implementing at least 3 joint marketing activities will contribute to the increase of share of entrepreneurs who are carrying out joint product development. This will help to increase the cross-border entrepreneurial activity for the year 2022 as stated by Programmes result indicator of the specific objective „ Joint products and services developed in cooperation” .