Azerbaijani mineral water producer expanding export markets

Azerbaijan’s Badamli Mineral Water Plant will receive a license to export products to European markets, the plant’s director Gumbat Gahramanov told Report.

“We have already gained access to the markets of Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Recently, we have also carried out our first export to Canada,” Gahramanov said.

He noted that products are exported to five countries - China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Iraq, the UAE: “The Russian market isn’t new for us. Badamli supplied products there in the 80s and 90s of last century and is a recognizable brand.”

He added that the annual production capacity of the plant is 150 million bottles. “At the end of the 90s, the daily export capacity of Badamli was 1 million bottles. We are trying to achieve these targets.”

Gahramanov noted that the plant’s products are in no way inferior to competitors’ mineral water and even surpass them in quality: “Our share in the Russian market is expanding from year to year.”

He added that Badamli produces 18 varieties of water. In the future, the assortment will expand, he said.

The Badamli plant has been operating in Azerbaijan’s Shahbuz region since 1947. In the period between the 1970s and 1980s, after the reconstruction of the enterprise, 90 percent of the products were sent outside Azerbaijan. In 1990, the plant’s activities were resumed. In 2004, the plant was privatized.