Page 128 - Romania 100

The functional foods Topoloveni and Topoloveana
Over a century of Romanian gastronomic tradition
When we talk about the Topoloveni plum jam (‘magiun de prune’), we are already talking about a national brand whose value is undoubtedly recognized abroad.
“The Topoloveni plum jam
is a product that has been representing us as a nation, since 1914 with a unique, authentic and traditional recipe. It accompanied our army in the First World War as the food of our brave soldiers. It has been intuitively known since then as a functional food that can be beneficial to our health. As a continuation, more than a century later we obtained the NATO Operator Code certification for the Topoloveni and Topoloveana 128
products, now based on careful laboratory tests”,
said Bibiana Stanciulov, general manager of Sonimpex Topoloveni.
2001 – a reference year
“The modern history of this wonderful functional food began in 2001, when we bought the
small Topoloveni factory Magiun, Deshidratate şi Alcool (Jam, Dehydrated Fruit and Alcohol) from the judicial liquidator. The main motivation for this investment was the respect for our ancestors who knew how to preserve a recipe, demonstrating thus our continuity as a nation.
We started the construction from scratch, from rusty, non-functional machines, which we managed to put back into operation with hard- to-imagine sacrifices. We have
always hoped that at one point
we would be able to reach the consumer’s mind and that together we would be able to build a healthy lifestyle in which the verb ‘to eat’ would be replaced/understood
as ‘to feed yourself’. We thought that as a result of societal changes people’s mindset would change as well and that they would adopt a clever way of respecting their own person.
It was with this purpose in
mind that we invested in the development of the brand
‘Plum Jam’ (‘Magiun de prune’) and prizes started to come in recognition of our work, the first one being the Golden Mark in 2002, one year after the takeover of the ‘pile of scrap’ that was the jam factory. Such recognition of our value was the impetus that gave us the courage to continue.