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By Anatoly Medetsky
A small food company has launched a unlikely venture in a major repair dock for the Pacific Fleet's warships and diesel submarines -- making pelmeni. The company, Snack Trade, makes the traditional Russian meat dumplings and other foods at Dalzavod Holding Company, once the Soviet Union's largest shipyard. Snack Trade rents production space next to clanking workshops and behind a barbed-wire fence on an industrial site where workers show their IDs to go in or out. Reforms and poor financing in the Russian army have downsized the amount of Navy contracts by half, leaving the plant wondering how to use the excess space. The solution was easy, Dalzavod executives say. The plant's central location and guarded premises make its space attractive to potential renters. "It's not a bad place strategically," said Oleg Shein, chairman of Snack Trade's board. "It's downtown, and it's behind a fence." Snack Trade makes 30 varieties of food, including sausage, minced meat, fish patties and several kinds of pelmeni and vareniki (dumplings stuffed with vegetables, cottage cheese or mushrooms). As a measure of the size of the company, officials said it supplies its products to 300 city stores and is one of the four largest companies in the business. Directors said the company isn't worried about competition because they succeeded in recreating the taste of a homemade food. To maintain the good quality, directors hold daily testing boards comprised of -- who else? -- themselves. "How do you keep up quality? Only by regular eating of what you produce," said Shein. The company started in August 1997 by launching a pelmeni-making operation in the canteen of Dalzavod's workshop No. 9, which repairs ship engines. This year, Snack Trade rented more space and added a vareniki-making line in the canteen of Wood Processing and Painting Workshop No. 7. And it set up a prepared foods facility in Worker Catering Combine No. 1. Like at other major enterprises, every workshop in Dalzavod once had a sauna, a psychological relief room, and a canteen. As the number of workers steadily fell, officials laid off supplementary personnel including cooks, which made several canteens available for rent. Dalzavod welcomes the opportunity to make excess premises work. "If the plant has vacant space that is of no use to us, I think it's very positive [to rent it out]," said Dalzavod Production Director Yury Firsov. While Dalzavod began to reduce its business and staff three years ago, it's still the only company in the Far East capable of repairing first-rank warships and diesel submarines, which are 50 percent of its work. As the military is a slow and irregular payer -- the Pacific Fleet owes the company 130 million rubles and regional border guards 25 million rubles -- the shipyard is on the lookout for money-making contracts. Therefore, the other 50 percent of company's business has to do with fishing, shipping and other civil companies such as the Far Eastern Shipping Co. and Dalmoreprodukt. A relatively tiny company, Snack Trade had to make itself comfortable first in the run-down space where plaster flakes from the walls of the hallway leading to its headquarters. Major repairs on the now-clean and cozy production rooms included replacement of water and sewage pipes and of electrical wiring rotten with age. For some at the shipyard the new pelmeni operation was a ray of hope. Fifty percent of Snack Trade's several dozens employees are former Dalzavod workers such as cooks and even welders and locksmiths who now work pelmeni-making machines. The director of the vareniki facility used to be the chief of Worker Catering Combine No. 1. Afraid of layoffs or appalled by irregular salaries, several people opted for Snack Trade when the business founders were looking for efficient personnel. "I like it here; everything is familiar," said the former production director at Dalzavod Workshop No. 8's canteen, Valentina Boiko, who had previously worked at the shipyard since 1978. Her canteen was closed and she faced a choice of going to another Dalzavod canteen or working for Snack Trade where employees are now paid every week. Their income averages $100 per month, an enviable salary in Russia. Before starting a pelmeni business, the entrepreneurs imported construction materials from South Korea and tools from China. "In China we saw this wonderful device from which pelmeni were popping out," Shein said. This gave start to the business diversification. Amidst the current wave of business shutdowns, industrial pelmeni fans may rest assured. The products have taken up a primary role in Snack Trades's business. While the other business was crippled by the ruble crisis, the demand for food stayed the same.
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