An illegal production plant of a fake Vegeta brand discovered in Bosnia and Herzegovina

According to information from the federal police of the Bosnian Ministry of Interior, an illegal production plant for the production and packaging of the Vegeta brand was discovered in Sarajevo.

The discovered forgeries of the Vegeta brand were being produced for sale in the market of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The illegal production plant contained equipment for the packaging of Vegeta, around 50 tons of the prepared mixture of the fake Vegeta brand, considerable amounts of aluminium foil, cardboard packaging carrying the Vegeta logo, which were prepared to be sold on the Bosnian market. The federal police of the Bosnian Ministry of Interior informed the relevant Podravka department of the plant’s existence, and an investigation into the incident is currently underway.

Podravka has already encountered similar problems of imitations and fakes of its products in the Bosnian market. In its combined operations at the beginning of 2003, Customs and Excise seized 100 kg of forged Vegeta packaging foil. However, imitations and forgeries of the Vegeta brand were also found in Sweden, Germany, Hungary, the Ukraine, Croatia (in the Sesvete district in Zagreb), etc., and 10 tons of fake Vegeta was seized in the operation carried out in coordination with the police in Russian open-air markets during 2001.

The damage that the distribution and sales of fake products cause for Podravka is enormous, especially as the circulation of fakes can confuse the buyers to a degree that they stop buying the original products as well. Still, in a certain number of cases the fake products of the Vegeta brand were discovered thanks to consumers or Podravka’s distributors, who informed the company of the fake products. Podravka warns and advises its consumers to buy Podravka products only in authorised shops.