{"id":2903,"date":"2025-11-26T09:49:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T07:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/ados-fresh-courageous-investments-in-a-difficult-year\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T11:14:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T09:14:14","slug":"ados-fresh-courageous-investments-in-a-difficult-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/ados-fresh-courageous-investments-in-a-difficult-year\/","title":{"rendered":"ADOS Fresh: Courageous investments in a difficult year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ADOS Fresh continued its investments in 2025 and maintained its agility in adapting its strategy to a challenging market environment. In this interview, the company\u2019s founder, Sorin Hu\u021banu, offers an overview of the current agricultural season as well as the key challenges in the market.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

We are nearing the end of the year, so we would like to ask you: how was 2025 as an agricultural season and, of course, in terms of business development?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, it was a difficult year\u2014a year filled with challenges at every step. A year with overproduction in some crops and production deficits in others. Both potatoes and watermelons recorded overproduction. After two or three strong years, established suppliers sought to expand the areas dedicated to these crops. Moreover, the market was flooded with products from companies that traditionally did not grow potatoes or watermelons. On the other hand, for vegetables grown in protected spaces\u2014such as Fabio cucumbers or gherkins\u2014there was a deficit, and yields were very low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, it was a year with many investments for us: the opening of new warehouses and packaging facilities, and the acquisition of new agricultural machinery to help us become more efficient in the harvesting process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been farming since 2008, and I believe this was the most difficult year we have ever had. Still, despite all the problems we faced and rising costs, we are ending the year satisfied. Looking at the numbers, we are happy that we covered our expenses, continued the investments that will generate results in the medium and long term, and kept moving forward. After the first eight months of the year, ADOS Fresh had a year-over-year growth of 3%. We estimate that we will close the year with a turnover of around 25 million euros\u2014slightly below our target\u2014but we look toward 2026 with confidence and optimism, even though we know it will not be easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was this year\u2019s production sold exclusively on the domestic market, or did you also export?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the production was sold domestically. We exported very little this year because Western Europe faced similar issues. Potatoes, for example, are in overproduction across the region\u2014they are incredibly cheap everywhere, including in Romania. We managed to sell most of our stock; we have about 5,000 tons remaining. The quality is very good, and we hope to sell everything by the end of January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you tell us about the growth of your storage capacity?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We opened a new warehouse in mid-October in Pogoanele and expanded the Crevedia warehouse to a total surface of 3,000 sqm. The Pogoanele warehouse covers 2,700 sqm. In total, our storage capacity now exceeds 5,500 sqm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of last year, you announced that you had secured funding for a major investment project. What stage is it in now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In mid-October 2025, we obtained the building permit for a major project: a frozen vegetable processing plant. On November 1, we expect to begin construction. The factory will have a built area of 7,000 sqm, distributed across two levels. It is a highly ambitious project\u2014complex and challenging to implement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What frozen vegetable categories are you targeting?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see an opportunity in the frozen vegetable mix category, especially in ready-to-cook products. We have many recipes under review, but it\u2019s still early. In principle, we want to blanch vegetables before freezing, without pre-frying in oil, because our goal is to introduce healthy frozen vegetables to the market. The category of frozen potatoes is crowded, with strong global players, and it is difficult to compete with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returning to this difficult year\u2014and especially to how you navigate challenging moments\u2014what have you learned, how do you prepare, and how do you get better at managing such periods?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned earlier, it was an incredibly difficult year overall. Unfortunately, in such contexts you also see weird market anomalies: hand-tied vegetable bags in modern retail, a flood of low-quality products, hundreds of hectares planted by people with no experience, unnecessary pressure and comparisons, SRLs delivering hundreds of tons of products without employees or warehouse authorizations, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We chose to focus on the positive, and one of the good things about tough years is that the market self-filters. We will remain here, maintaining the same delivery levels, staying agile, and focusing on cost optimization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must also be realistic\u2014we are coming off three or four very good production years, with decent prices and satisfying margins, years in which farmers earned solid incomes. There are good years and bad years; agriculture is cyclical. That\u2019s why we must think beyond individual seasons, react quickly, and yes\u2014keep investing even if, in the short term, it may seem risky. In 2025, our investments exceeded 2.5 million euros. This year, we significantly expanded our cultivated areas \u2014 and thus our production capacity \u2014 purchased new agricultural equipment, expanded storage and packaging capacities, and diversified packaging types to improve market presence. We brought electricity to more than 400 hectares\u2014an important investment that will pay off in a few years, not overnight. But these investments are visible and have measurable returns. They are essential for the long term, helping us keep pace with production and the need to reduce costs. In difficult years, this is what everyone looks at: where can we cut costs without compromising product quality, services, or the people we work with?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stand by every decision we made and remained agile. We need to stay informed and understand broader contexts because the market is no longer influenced solely by what happens domestically. Everyone knows how much they want to earn, but you must carefully calculate how much you can afford to lose. Fortunately, we have a healthy and complex business, diversified across several lines\u2014production, transport and logistics, trading, etc. The companies in our group have performed differently, which balances things out. We look toward the near future with confidence and believe that we have the necessary tools to remain relevant to our clients, to whom I thank for their trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: www.modernbuyer.ro<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ADOS Fresh continued its investments in 2025 and maintained its agility in adapting its strategy to a challenging market environment. In this interview, the company\u2019s founder, Sorin Hu\u021banu, offers an overview of the current agricultural season as well as the key challenges in the market. We are nearing the end of the year, so we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2874,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articole"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2903"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2907,"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2903\/revisions\/2907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adosfresh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}