Hello, dear Agromir.

We are writing on behalf of the group Potrebitel.uz. First of all, we want to thank you for the heartwarming attention to our group. Every year you invite us on a visit, and spare no efforts to meet us as relatives. You take us for four hundred kilometers from Tashkent to the distant magic Samarkand, show your beautiful modern factory, feast us and drive around the beautiful city.

We realize what difficult and troublesome guests we are. At your huge factory, we managed to penetrate every corner, touch and twist every helve, handle, and button. We took photographs where no one is allowed to take photographs and asked hundreds of the most insidious questions. We drank litres your juice, demanding to show us the fruits from which they were pressed. We could not be dragged from the shop until the crank of the very first barrel with the size of a house is unscrewed, which stands immediately after the huge juicers. Well, you know what kind of barrel. Where the fresh, thick, opaque, sour, juice with foam after pressing is collected.

Dear Agromir, please do not think, that we hesitate about the naturality of your juice. We have already understood it, standing by the side of the pool with tons of apples and looking at hectares of apple pressings, which are dried in the sun throughout the territory. And last year we saw a string of trucks with putamen of cherries. Yes, we climbed the wall of the pressing department, and found there the pipes of juicers, from which everything is discharged after the fruit is pressed. Do not get angry, we are the group Potrebitel.uz, we are ubiquitous, we have to check everything. We just found everything at your factory to be so interesting, and we really want to boast of what we saw and what we did. We hope that we did not eat all the purees and concentrated juices in your superlaboratory. It was delicious and fun.

And we want to confess, that we set up one pack of juice with a removed lid to the conveyor belt. A kind of devil-machine hit it and pushed off the assembly line on the floor. We kindly apologize, we just wanted to check, whether the machine misses it or does not. It did not miss. Then we throw the pack into the box standing nearby.

We have already told everyone about you, Agromir, about Bliss and Meva juices, and about crispy cucumbers with tomatoes in Marinelle jars. Told that we watched how it is produced directly from apples to a package on the conveyor belt. And that no miracle preservatives are added there. And that no dyes are added. It is just pressed out of the fruit, filtered, concentrated, brought to the desired density, and sterilized under pressure and temperature. And that you regulate the temperature of sterilization in such way, as to preserve the maximum of vitamins.

Here, in Tashkent, we bought the tomato paste Marinelle, which we tried at your factory. It is very tasty. Especially to thin down the tomato sauce from it for fried chicken or kebab. Thank you.

A big request: give regards to your technologist Natalia Glukhova, we liked her so much that we even wanted to take her to Tashkent with us. She is a stunning specialist.
And give regards to the deputy director Fazliddin-aka Mordanov, he's so cool, it was very interesting to go around the factory with him.

And give regards to the girls from the laboratory and to the guys from the shops.

And to the cooks in your factory canteen. Samarkand pilav was just amazing.

And you also treated us with delicious yogurt. We know that this yogurt is from your farm, Agromir. We know that cows constantly eat the fruit pressings, therefore they give such delicious milk. And the yogurt is so creamy that the spoon can be fixed in it. Give regards to the workers of the subsidiary farm, too.

And to the girls from the marketing department who cared about us as relatives.

"In general, the trip to your factory, Agromir, is a unique gift for us. The group's moderators said that more than 100 people from the group have visited you in Samarkand. Now there are already more than 100 thousand members in the group. So, dear Agromir, please invite us again. We will go with pleasure, many people want to visit you."

Thereon we say goodbye to you, Agromir, we drink Bliss and Meva juices and remember you. We are looking forward to see you again. Thank you for the most interesting excursion, for your attention, for your delicious juices!

Well, now is the time for questions and answers.

Preparing for the excursion to the Samarkand juice factory on production of Bliss and Meva juices, the members of the Потребитель.уз group asked more than 600 questions from the staff and management of the factory. We will omit the repeats, and provide answers to the most popular questions. In case if we have not laid out answer to any of the important issues, then you can always ask it in the contest theme.

Where and what does Agromir export? Is it true that you are exporting your products to the USA?

Yes, it's true, there is export of juices to the USA, as well as to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, China, India and Japan. Beside such finished goods as juices, we export finished concentrate from our fruit. Concentrated juices are exported to Russia and Kazakhstan, where they restore juices of several popular brands.

Do you enrich your juices with vitamins?

No, we do not add anything. The Bliss and Meva juices contain only natural vitamins, which are in the fruits themselves.

How many kilograms of apples do you need to get one litre of Bliss juice?

Approximately 1200 gr. It is necessary to deduct a peel and a core.

What preservatives do you add? None.

If you do not add preservatives, then how can your juice not spoil so long?

When you do home preserves, you do not add any preservatives, just sterilize in a clean, non-oxidizing container-can. We conduct ultra-pasteurization - this is heating at high pressure. Due to temperature decrease ultrapasterization allows you to save more vitamins than sterilization. It is high pressure that allows you to lower the temperature, and at the same time kill all harmful bacterial flora.

Where do pineapples, oranges and other tropical fruits come from? We do not grow them. Do you add powder? (here I need to screw up my eyes).

No powder. It just looks like our thickening the juice from domestic apples, cherries, currants, blackberries, peaches, apricots and others, the countries in which pineapples, mangoes, oranges and other exotics grows perfectly, produce juice from them and thicken by evaporation of excess water. They get absolutely natural concentrate, very thick juice, alike the state of the paste. That's what we buy. Mostly from Israel, it is of very good quality.The members of your group have tried it :) 

Where does fruit for juices come from? What fruit is from which area?

Apples, tomatoes, grapes, cherries are mainly from the suburbs of Samarkand and Samarkand region, including own gardens of Agromir. Pomegranates and quinces are supplies from Surkhandarya. Raspberries, blackberries and strawberries come from Tashkent and the Tashkent region. Raspberries and blackberries from the Bostanlyk district are especially good. 

What kind of water do you use to restore the juice? How do you filter?

The Agromir has its own artesian well, the water in which is of the highest quality and purity, optimally suitable for the normalization of juices. We use only this water.

Do the "winter" and "summer" juices differ?

In order to guarantee the buyer a certain taste of your favorite juice, there is a restoration of the juice from the fruit concentrate, which is produced exactly in the period when each particular fruit is especially good. This method allows to guarantee a certain taste, sweetness, aroma and density for each batch, regardless of the year season.

The most favorite consumer question - about the mold, which someone found in juice.

Bliss and Meva juices are natural, without preservatives, and therefore, as in any live juice, mold can be wind up in it. Mold does not live with preservatives. But! In order to get the mold started, its seeds must somehow penetrate into the package. The production lines of Agromir are arranged in such a way that no bacteria or seeds can survive in the juice during the production process. The cycle is completely closed. Consequently, if there is a mold appeared in the juice, the only reason is the depressurization of the package. In other words, the package has a hole somewhere through which air gets in, being inseminated with moldy seeds.

Where this depressurization occurred is a matter of questions.

~ The package might be damaged when loading or transporting to the point of sale.
~ The package could be damaged at the point of sale.
~ The human factor is also possible, but it is extremely rare in the Agromir factory, because each package of juice passes through many checks with powerful sensors. The only chance, when it can happen is a moment of a sudden stop of the conveyer. 
~ There have been cases when at the point of sale, dishonest people opened the lid, breaking the protective ring. Drank the juice, twisted the lid and put the juice on place, on the counter. Such cases are especially frequent during the conduct of actions.

Therefore, when buying the juice, be sure to check the integrity of the protective ring. It should fit snugly against the lid and be fixed on it. Here we took the package from the conveyer and unscrewed the lid, the safety ring sagged down. This is clearly seen in the photo.

By light squeezing a package of juice you may feel, whether air comes out of it or it remains incompressible.

Is it possible to determine why the problem occurred?

Of course it is possible. In order to do this, the buyer must provide a problematic package of juice. The juice sample from each batch is stored in the factory in a special archive during the year. It can always be compared with a pack from the point of sale. If the sample has no problems, then all the other packages of this batch are similar. Further, we need to examine the package for the matter of damage and mold. There are many kinds of mold. Looking at its appearance, you can immediately understand, under what conditions it occurred in the package. In any case, the cause is the depressurization and this cause needs to be clarified. Employees of the Agromir factory are always ready to take the juice for examination into their laboratory and conduct an expert study in an independent laboratory. Because they are sure of their product.

Isn't it better to produce an unclarified juice, literally the first pressing?

Your participants asked us to pour the juice of the first pressing, remove it immediately during the process from the production line in order to try it. We did not expect such a request, therefore, poured not into a beautiful container, but simply into a clean glass jar. You can see it in the hands of the technologist Natalia Glukhova.

It is very tasty and healthy juice. But it has absolutely no marketing appearance due to the presence of pulp. After all, apple kernels were pressed there as well.Yes, they are useful, but practice shows that the buyer wants to have a crystal clear drink on his table.

Therefore, our juice is filtered down to such a state of amber purity. If there was a demand for unfiltered juices of the first pressing, then it would not be problematic for us to sterilize and pour out such juice. But there is no demand yet.

What is the difference between juice, nectar, fruit infusion and fruit-drink?

The fruit part in juice must be 100%. According to the juice standards, we can not even add more than 1.5% of sugar, otherwise it is not juice. But acidity regulation is possible. Well, and water in a thick concentrate to restore to the original state of juice density. All other drinks are produced by adding both sugar, sour cream, and a mixture of fruits and water in different percentages to achieve the optimal taste effect.

Why don't you produce juices from melon, watermelon or pumpkin?

They are not in demand. We in Uzbekistan have got used to consume all this in a fresh kind, and the prices for them are not high. If there is a demand - we will produce. No problem.

Do you plan to produce juices without any sugar?

And we have been producing them for a long time. Bliss apple juice, pomegranate and tomato have a purely natural sweetness. When they are produced, we do not add sugar to them. At all.

By the way, about tomato juice. Why is it not salty?

We believe that salt is a very individual component. Each buyer has the right to decide how much salt to use with juice and how it tastes better. Salt can always be added to taste. But it will not be possible to remove salt from the juice.

Are ISO standards implemented into the production of Bliss and Meva?

The company has a "Quality Management System" ISO 9001: 2008, "Quality Management System" ISO 22000: 2005, "Food Safety Management System" FSSC 22000, which also includes a system FIFO (First in-First off), which means "first came - first went away." Only those products from the archive room remain (products from each batch are selected and sent to the annual storage in the archives room). After 1 year of storage, physicochemical and microbiological researches are conducted repeatedly.

Epilogue

The participants of the excursion to the factory of Bliss and Meva juices production had no questions to the employees of the factory. They spent several hours there, and saw everything themselves. Thanks, Agromir!

From feedbacks:

~ I'm delighted! Agromir staff are so hospitable, they accepted us as the most dear relatives! Now I will campaign all relatives to buy their products, I'm sure of it! Special thanks to the organizers! You are super!

- Great trip. Thanks to the organizers!!!

~ Thanks to the Agromir Technologist Natalya for answering all the questions !!! Thank you Lilia Nikolenko for organizing a trip to Samarkand, for interesting stories about the mysterious Samarkand. Thank you all, there was a very friendly and interesting company!

- Thanks to all the organizers for an impressionable day! I wish prosperity and new achievements to the Agromir company! It was great!)

- Thanks to everyone for an interesting trip, for the impressions. It was cool.

- Thanks for the warm setout to the Agromir company, to all participants and organizers! A lot of bright impressions and emotions.

- Thanks to the organizers, the moderators, despite my poor health, this was a great trip. Thanks to Потребитель.уз my mental outlook have greatly expanded. I now understand almost everything, ranging from juices and sausages, ending with a laminate.

- Great trip. Thanks to the organizers!!!

- Thanks to all the organizers and participants! It was a very informative and interesting journey! I got great pleasure!

- Thanks to the organizers and participants.

- Cool pictures, a wonderful trip, an interesting excursion! And the legends and myths of Ancient Samarkand from the lips of Lilia Nikolenko are generally beyond praise! Thanks to Потребитель.уз, thanks to Agromir. :)

- Many thanks to the organizers of the trip to Samarkand to the Agromir factory!!! The excursion was not only interesting, fun, but also cognitive. Special thanks to Lilia Nikolenko, who, as it turned out, is not only a good organizer, but also is an excellent guide.

- I thank the organizers, moderators, and participants, it was cool, the impressions were super class, I learned a lot of new things for myself. Emil and Lilia wish you and the participants of our group prosperity in all your endeavors. WELL DONE !!!

- Thanks to Agromir for such an exiting trip. Thanks to Потребитель.уз for being what you are.

- I agree with all the above steted! Many thanks to Agromir, organizers and participants!!! It was very informative, interesting and positive!!!