December 19, 2021 – OPG Matulic from Pasman Island just off the coast of Zadar started working only a decade ago, and they caught the attention of not only locals but the much larger market as well. from Zagreb.

Like Poslovni Dnevnik / PD VL Native Tim Writes, the Matulic Family Farm (OPG Matulic) on Pasman Island was founded ten years ago by Krsto and Ana Matulic. This family business includes the cultivation of olives, figs and peppers. They started out with just a hundred plants, and today they have over 2,000 plants of various peppers each year.

˝We are a small family farm, currently there are three of us, we have a hectare of land and we do not sell raw materials, only finished products. We grow chilli, figs, aloe vera, and we also have a lot of wild plants. My husband Krsto takes care of the estate and the spices, and I take care of the cosmetics. This year has been very difficult and intense. Throughout the pandemic, we have set up a production unit and spent a little more time selling online. There were also other novelties. I launched three new products: Sea Tail – hand cream, Belle – face mousse and the Lady Sunshine summer tube. Krsto made amazing chocolate with fig and maraschino acetate and olive oil, ”said Ana Matulic as she began the OPG Matulic story.

They started online sales a year and a half ago, and as they point out from OPG Matulic, they are very happy with the results and sales they have had so far, especially during the holiday season. . In their Pasman store you can buy only their products, from hot sauces, flavored salts, fig oils and acetates, to olive oil based cosmetics and new kinds of chocolate. In the beginning, the majority of their products were bought by foreigners, and today more and more domestic customers visit them and buy them as gifts for others and for themselves. The best-selling and most sought-after products are Pasman Libre Fig Aceto and Immortelle Face Cream.

OPG Matulic’s products have been awarded the Croatian Island Product Label, they have received the Croatian Rural Tourism Sunflower Award three times, and they have also received the Superior Taste Award for their Pasmanero in 2017 and for their Pasman libre fig aceto in 2018, making him the very first domestic small producer to receive this award.

The International Taste Award in Italy in 2020 went to the Pasman Libre for gold and silver in their Pasmanero and wine vinegar. The last prize OPG Matulic won was the Great Taste Award, and they received up to three stars in England for Pasman Libre. Out of more than 14,000 registered products, only 211 received three stars. They do not aim to place their products on the shelves of chain stores, as they say, they prefer small delicatessens and specialty stores, for example, Gligora has its products in its largest stores in Zagreb, Zadar and Kolan , and during the season they are present in a number of small shops on the coast and the islands of Vis in Korcula, Hvar and Brac.

˝Many of our restaurants in Pasman have our Pasmanero and Pasman Libre hot fig vinegar sauces. We are represented in the catering and hotel trades in Murter, Korcula, Dubrovnik and Zadar, and more recently in Zagreb in the new restaurant Al Dente in Bogoviceva street. In fact, someone often calls us from various restaurants and asks us for an offer. However, since we do not sell our spices in larger packages than what is available on the website, this will be a problem for most people in the restaurant and hotel industry. Some people, however, decide to take what we offer them and are generally happy with it. We do not have classic collaborations with hotels, but some of them ship our products for their souvenir shops, and some occasionally for gifts for their VIP guests. One of the longest collaborations we have had is with Adriatic Sailing Charter, which takes our gift packages for guests on their luxury yachts, ” they said of OPG Matulic.

As for their spices, they produce most of the raw materials themselves, they buy figs from the local people on the island of Pasman, and for the production of cosmetics they also cooperate with other family farms. from which they buy hydrosols, essential oils and beeswax. The production is located in their family home on the ground floor, and as Matulic explains, it is both an economic and a residential space, and the production plant covers around 40 square meters in total.

For more information, see Made in Croatia.