Foreign buyers recognise Croatian chamomile quality

Foreign buyers recognise Croatian chamomile quality

Almost twenty million euros a year are earned from the sale of local medicinal herbs outside Croatia. Most of Croatia’s chamomile is also exported with international customers recognising its quality.

The harvest of chamomile has begun in Croatia’s Podravina region. The sandy soil of Podravina is key in producing high quality chamomile. 

Harvest is also happening near Đurđevac, – where the well-known ‘Croatian Sahara’ is. The conditions have been great the harvest is promising.

“The year is top notch, the yields are very good, the quality is extremely good. Foreign buyers were here, they are satisfied, they took the samples for analysis. It looks like there will be a bit more demand this year. Where are the customers from? They are them all over Europe, the Czech Republic, France, Italy,” Mladen Dijaković, a producer and processor of chamomile from Otrovanac told HRT. 

The buyers of chamomile from the region are mainly foreigners, pharmaceutical and food companies, who discovered the beneficial composition of Podravina chamomile about 30 years ago.

“We can do practically anything from the field to the table. Prepare everything for the customer for the filter bag, if he wants bulk packaging we can do it, we can do the essence. We have a distillery for essential oils,” Dijaković points out.

A number of local Croatian companies are increasingly processing chamomile into finished products such as teas, and most chamomile is exported to almost all continents.