How to sell rye bread, birch sap and fermented baked milk to the British? Let's talk about those who succeeded. Is it possible to make the collection of birch sap an additional seasonal income? Ideas for selling birch sap

Every year, during one and a half to two spring weeks, forestry in our country harvests about 20 thousand tons of birch sap. The population is not lagging behind either. Many people try in different ways to stock up on “live” drinks for future use, and some also manage to make money from it. And it’s completely legal.

It turned out to be quite simple to get a seasonal job at the Logoisk forestry enterprise. Local residents are hired there on contract basis.

But it is necessary to fulfill the daily norm - to collect at least 180 liters, - instructs the forester of the Kozyr forestry Alexander Grishchenya, escorting them to the plot. - The calculations are simple: for each liter, based on the results of the work, you will receive 140 rubles. Compliance with the norm guarantees another 20 percent of the total amount.

I admit, I am overcome by despondency. Low prices! Moreover, try to “squeeze” these almost 2 centners of liquid per day out of a birch tree!

Meeting my team. These are residents of the surrounding villages. They were allocated a plot of 12.2 hectares. It took them two days to prepare - they had to make cuts on the marked trees, drive in metal grooves, and tie up plastic bags.

The work is monotonous, recalls 37-year-old Vladimir. - On the hundredth birch tree my head began to spin.

The number of holes depends on the diameter of the tree (20-26 cm - one, 27-34 cm - two, 35-40 cm - three, more than 40 cm - four). The holes are either drilled with a drill or sawed through with a saw to a depth of no more than 2-3 centimeters, without taking into account the thickness of the bark. A stainless steel groove or a freshly cut shoot of hazel, maple, or linden is inserted into the prepared hole. A plastic bag is tied under the groove. Juice should be collected from containers at least once a day.

In total, about 600 birch trees were trimmed on our plot, with 1,200 bags tied to them. They turn white at the roots of trees and are visible from afar. Another round shows that some containers are almost full. So it's time to go to work.

A tractor with a barrel-trailer makes its way through the clearings with effort. Our task is to untie the full bags from the trees and bring them to the tractor. Then the juice goes into the barrel, from where, as it is filled, it is pumped using a motor pump into a stationary container at the “base” - a site in the middle of the forest. And from there, by agreement with the forestry enterprise, the drink will be picked up by transport from the nearest processing plant.

A plastic bag tied to a birch tree can hold up to 40 liters of sap. In principle, it’s not very difficult for two people to lift it and move it a few meters. The main thing is not to break it on the branches of bushes. In just 15 minutes I easily and naturally fulfill the minimum daily requirement of 184 liters. Then, as they say, I work for myself. Within an hour we fill a three-ton barrel trailer. I quickly calculate in my head: my “share” is 500 liters. I mentally put 84 thousand rubles in my pocket. Sparsely? For now.

The gifts of nature are quickly transferred from the trailer to a stationary container, and we again go for the bags. There is no need to hesitate. The hotter the sun gets, the more actively the sap circulates through the birch trees. On hills and open places it flows from the grooves, like from a moonshine still in the notorious movie, just have time to substitute the container. This means that every minute of delay deprives us of our money.

In the distance, on a forest road, someone is honking their horn desperately. It's our clients who got lost. Residents of Minsk and other populated areas are rushing to stock up on “fresh juice” for future use and storm our base. They paid the receipts at the forestry office, and our task is to purchase them “according to the tickets purchased.”

Eduard came from Minsk. In the trailer of his car there are various sized cans and barrels. I paid for 450 liters of juice.

The best way to preserve juice until autumn is to make kvass from it, the guest shares the recipe. - I pour the drink into plastic bottles, add a few raisins to each, and put it in the refrigerator. After a week or two, a refreshing drink is ready.

Alexander and his wife Marina are from Borovlyany. They went 40 kilometers from home for 50 liters of spring liquid. We lost a lot of time. We burned a lot of fuel. We conducted an unplanned crash test of the car on a hilly forest road. Was the game worth the trouble? It turned out that the process is important to them. They themselves walk cheerfully between the birches, look for a “more nutritious” package, and pour it into the canister with their own hands. We are in a good mood, we encourage:

We should choose a birch tree near our house and squeeze these liters out of it!

You know, I'm better officially. It will be cheaper...

Really, it's not worth the risk. Alexander Grishchenya warns that in accordance with the Code of Administrative Offenses, a fine of up to 4.2 million rubles is provided for violating the rules for collecting juice. At the same Logoisk forestry enterprise, a liter of juice costs only 1,500 rubles. So is it really worth the risk?

The guests are leaving, and it’s time for us to get to work. We start the tractor and go into the forest.

From morning until the end of the day, our team manages to prepare 12 tons of juice. And this is not the limit. The hottest days are ahead. I'm counting the profits. It turns out that I earned 336 thousand rubles in a day. On average, the sap period lasts 12-14 days, which means that the average harvester can count on earnings of approximately 4 million rubles. As a bonus, you can drink birch bark by the liter, as they say, without leaving the cash register.

I can't say I overworked myself. Periods of intense work are followed by long rest, when you can just sit, take a breath, and talk to your companions about life. Each of them has their own plans for additional income.

Old-timers from forestry workers recall that in the past, getting a job as a birch sap procurer was not only honorable, but also very profitable. Even today, foresters are temporarily transferred to the positions of forest fellers in order to have the right to engage in harvesting. Why not, if the help is appreciated?

The guys from my team will arrive at the plot again the next day at dawn. When the harvesting season ends, they still have to clean up after themselves and heal the wounded birch trees.

According to the rules, after collecting the juice, the grooves must be removed and the holes closed with wooden plugs or covered with pitch, garden ointment, clay with lime or resin containing 20 percent charcoal. This will prevent tree diseases. The forest teaches you to live more than just one day.

Opinion

Elena Andreeva, head of the canning industry department of the Belgospischeprom concern:

- Every year, our processing enterprises purchase from forestry enterprises up to 95 percent of all collected birch sap - from 15 to 20 thousand tons per year. As a result, we get about 40 million conventional cans of the finished product, which is bottled into glass containers, tetrapacks, PET bottles and backing boxes of various sizes.

Birch sap is the most popular drink among our citizens. The demand is so great that almost all canning factories are involved in its processing during the season. The product is exported to Russia and Lithuania. Even in the USA, in recent years, birch water has been making a real splash, competing with coconut water, which has long been loved by Americans. However, export volumes are small: the drink is actively sold out on the domestic market.

And this is not surprising. After all, of all the juices produced by our enterprises, it is birch juice that is the most valuable in terms of its beneficial properties and taste. Moreover, the greatest demand is for pure birch bark, without additives, only with sugar.

There is an opinion that glass containers for bottling juice are an outdated technology. This is wrong.

Firstly, glass is considered the most environmentally friendly packaging. Secondly, the shelf life of the drink in a glass jar reaches 2 years (in a tetra pack - no more than 1 year). Thirdly, the consumer can visually assess the quality of the product only in a transparent glass jar or bottle.

One of the main tasks is to preserve the maximum amount of nutrients in the juice. That is why some of the raw materials in factories are placed in aseptic containers or aseptic storage bags in order to supply retail outlets with fresh products during the off-season. In a vacuum and completely closed environment, fresh birch can be stored for several months.

Thirty-five-year-old graduate of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University Alexey Gribin has been collecting birch sap since childhood on a 35-acre summer cottage in the village of Voeikovo in the Leningrad region. Four years ago, he bought a bottle of birch sap in one of the cafes. He didn’t like the taste: “Water with sugar and citric acid, not birch sap.”

It was then that the indignant Gribin decided to produce birch sap not only for his own consumption, but also for sale: people need to know what a real birch drink is. In 2013, the entrepreneur resigned from his position as chief specialist in the Energy and Engineering Committee of the St. Petersburg Administration and created the 7 Birches company. And last year he began brewing maple syrup under the 6 Maple brand.

The new business required minimal investment. Gribin bought 60 five-liter cans of water for several thousand rubles, poured water out of them (it was convenient to collect juice in them) and another 30,000 rubles. spent on organizing a birch sap festival in the Vsevolozhsk district of the Leningrad region. The technology was elementary - Gribin hung five-liter bottles on trunks in his dacha (he has 70 birch trees) and in the forest next door. Later, he expanded the grove to almost 400 trunks, having agreed with the nearby Geophysical Laboratory named after. A. I. Voeikova. “In America, the juice is collected directly in the parks,” says Gribin.

If in 2013 the revenue of “7 Birches” amounted to only a few tens of thousands of rubles, then in 2015 it increased 10 times to 600,000 rubles. The product turned out to be quite in demand, says Gribin. And the net profit rate is about 30%. Last year, Gribin collected 10 tons of sap, and this year he plans to collect four times more - if he finds a suitable number of trees: on average, 3 liters of sap can be collected per day from one tree.

Dropper and ultraviolet

Gribin makes a hole in the tree bark, inserts a disposable medical dropper into it, then attaches a sterile medical tube to it. Several of these tubes, running at an angle from different trunks, are connected into one larger one, and the juice flows into a canister. Then the entrepreneur purifies the collected liquid with a special ultraviolet lamp and freezes it in the freezer (Gribin has previously frozen mushroom berries for his own use in large quantities). Freezing is considered the optimal processing method in terms of costs and preservation of beneficial properties, says Anatoly Gavrilyuk, general director of the Absolute Nature Group (Living Juices). Other options are sterilization or pasteurization at a temperature of 70–80 ° C, followed by the production of a concentrate.

Juice of the Fatherland

According to the Union of Manufacturers of Soft Drinks and Mineral Waters, the capacity of the soft drink market in 2015 was 6 billion liters. However, birch sap, according to Anatoly Gavrilyuk from Absolute Nature, accounts for less than 1%.

The service life of the juice pipe is short - about three weeks, then you have to replace the tubes with new sterile ones. Gribin came across the idea of ​​such a system on the Internet from Canadian and American farmers.

There are only 3-4 producers of birch sap in Russia, estimates Mikhail Chetvertakov, general director of the Dobrye Vody company (producing birch sap since 1998). And a company with a sales volume of birch drink of 1 million rubles. per year is considered a major producer, say Gavrilyuk and Chetvertakov.

In the Soviet Union, birch sap was produced in large quantities and was inexpensive, and because of this, the consumer still considers this drink to be second-rate, comments Anatoly Gavrilyuk, CEO of Absolute Nature Group of Companies (“Living Juices”). But abroad, birch sap is considered a fashionable organic product and is not cheap, the expert says. For example, a 250 ml bottle of juice on Amazon.com costs about 830 rubles in rubles. And 0.5 liters of birch sap “7 Birches” costs 100 rubles.

Festival channel

The main sales channel is mass events and festivals. An active political life helped Gribin establish supplies. He participated in municipal elections twice as a self-nominated candidate. Both attempts ended in failure, but Gribin managed to meet the governor of the Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko. And when in the spring of 2014 Gribin decided to organize the first birch sap festival on the territory of the Geophysical Laboratory named after. A.I. Voeikov, then turned for support to Drozdenko and the head of the administration of the Vsevolozhsk region, Vladimir Drachev. And they supported him - as the initiator of an interesting cultural and patriotic event. Gribin built his signature sap pipe and poured sap from the tree into plastic cups for suitable festival guests. All of Gribin’s expenses (about 30,000 rubles) were recouped through sales. Gribin expects that more than 1,000 people will come to the festival this year.

At another festival “Oh, yes! Food!" in June 2015, on Elagin Island, Gribin earned 110,000 rubles in two days, having paid a participation fee of 40,000 rubles. According to Gribin, the benefit of fairs and festivals is that trade in products from personal plots is not subject to taxes and does not require the use of cash registers. True, it is necessary to provide documents about quality. Gribin has them: birch sap has undergone laboratory tests and received a conclusion from Rospotrebnadzor (a copy is available from Vedomosti).

Canadian chef and Russian syrup

In 2015, Gribin began experiments with other natural products - birch and maple syrups. According to Gribin, three years ago it was unprofitable to brew maple syrup: it was cheaper to buy from Canadian and American producers. But the devaluation of the ruble gave the entrepreneur a chance. He borrowed recipes from colleagues from Canada and the USA. At first, he cooked syrups on the stove from juice collected in the same grove, but this was ineffective, admits Gribin. He now uses a custom-made juice evaporator. To obtain 1 liter of maple syrup you need 40–70 liters of sap, and for 1 liter of birch syrup – 60–150 liters. Now Gribin can process up to 1000 liters of juice per day.

According to the entrepreneur, in the summer of 2015, at a food festival, the brand chef of the Ginza Project restaurant holding Alexander Belkovich approached the entrepreneur. Now Gribin is negotiating with Ginza about regular deliveries and hopes to be in time for Maslenitsa. A Ginza representative confirmed the negotiations. The entrepreneur also plans to sell 100 liters of maple syrup at farmers markets this year.

Now 150 g of “6 maples” syrup costs 300 rubles. – 1.5–2 times lower compared to imported products, says Gribin. And the other day, says Gribin, the chef of the restaurant at the Grand Hotel Europe, Canadian Ian Minnis, became interested in maple syrup. A hotel spokeswoman confirmed the planned meeting between Minnis and Gribin. Almost all of Gribin’s revenue comes from retail, but he expects to increase the share of restaurants. But first, Gribin will have to certify the products.

Too few trees

Last summer, Gribin went to the first international conference of birch sap and syrup producers in New York State. And there he came up with the idea of ​​supplying products to the foreign market. Back in the summer, the Slovak smoothie producer Acaimania wanted to buy a batch of juice, but the entrepreneur did not have enough volume. Birch sap is also used in the production of cosmetics, but manufacturers need a certificate of organic origin of Gribin’s products. “The problem is that in Russia there are no such standards at all yet. “I even contacted Opora Rossii,” he says.

This year, Gribin hopes to receive European quality certificates, and is now registering his business as a peasant farm. He wants to rent forest in the Leningrad region, but it is expensive and eats up his profit, the farmer says. According to government decree No. 310 of May 22, 2007 “On payment rates per unit volume of forest resources and payment rates per unit area of ​​forest land in federal ownership,” he will be forced to pay a fee of 10 rubles for each liter of birch sap. in the Leningrad region. “If I can’t defeat the system and change this rule, I’ll leave to work in another region,” says Gribin. Growth prospects for an entrepreneur in Russia are limited. To become a large producer, you need large reserves of raw materials, i.e. trees, says Gavrilyuk.

The TUT.BY hotline received a message from a reader who claimed that the Gomel forestry enterprise, when collecting birch sap, treats trees barbarously, which are also located on the territory of a botanical natural monument. A journalist from our portal went to the site and figured out why birch trees “cry” and what the price of these tears is.

And the reader was struck by, as he writes, the “barbaric method” of collecting birch sap, which the forestry prepares for sale: “The depth of cuts with a chainsaw is up to 25 cm! And last year’s cuts look like they reach the middle of the trunk. How is this possible? The fine for the fact that a person will take juice without permission seems to reach 3 million. All their lives people have done this carefully, then filling up the places drilling. What is happening in forestry enterprises today? Save our birches!”

In addition to the photo, a video was also attached to the letter.

Attention! You have JavaScript disabled, your browser does not support HTML5, or you have an older version of Adobe Flash Player installed.

On the main page of the website of the Gomel forestry enterprise, an advertisement for the sale of birch sap immediately catches the eye. In the "Manufactured Products" section it is also listed along with "timber, fuel chips, natural honey, a household broom and a bath broom."

I'm on the phone with Nikolai Russu- the forester of the Makeevsky forestry, on whose territory there are those very rugged birch trees. He offers to go to the site to comment on the complaint.

The next morning I go to the forestry. Before leaving for the plot where the sap is being collected, Nikolai Russu said that in the place where the reader visited, there really is a security zone. But the collection of birch sap is organized in a forest area that has nothing to do with it.

- Look: we are putting a “tap” in the 179th quarter, section 8,- he shows on the map. - And the natural monument, indicated by a dotted line, is located in a completely different quarter - in 164, section 10. The distance between the plot where juice is collected and the natural monument is at least 350 meters.

The forester said that when collecting birch sap, the forestry enterprise has the right to use trees only in areas that will be cut down in the coming years. In order not to be unfounded, I opened the magazine and showed: "Quarter 179, section 8 - clear cutting."

- In 2017, we are obliged to cut down the birch trees in question. Otherwise, it will be a violation of the forest use rules,- he explained. - There are instructions that we strictly adhere to. Understand, these trees are over 80 years old. They will weaken and die. And before cutting down we must harvest. The forest cannot last forever: we cut down trees and plant new ones.

Nikolai Russu does not deny that the cuts on the birch trees were made with a chainsaw. He says that this is provided for by the “Rules for the harvesting of secondary forest resources and the implementation of secondary forest management,” which states that "When harvesting tree sap commercially, instead of drilling sap holes, sawing with a chainsaw without removing the bark is allowed".

- Where do you sell birch sap?- I ask.

- Previously, 5-6 years ago, we handed it over to the Gomel winery. Now the situation has developed that not a single plant in the Gomel region accepts it for processing. They accept it in Brest, but if we start transporting it there, this will lead to unjustified costs: the distance is long, fuel is not cheap, and juice is an inexpensive product. In addition, we would have to hire cars with tanks - again, expenses. That’s why we sell juice to the public right in the forest.

While we were driving along the M10 Gomel - Kobrin highway, Nikolai Russu told us how this procedure goes.

It turns out that people call the forestry department in advance, back in February, to make an appointment to buy birch sap: they give their name, how many liters they want to buy and leave their phone number. This creates a long queue.

As soon as the sap collection begins, forestry workers call those who have signed up. Before taking the juice directly from the plot, they must obtain documents from the forestry department for its purchase and export. A forester meets them in the forest. He pours fresh juice from a plastic bag directly into the customer's container. As they say, everyone is happy: both the forestry department, which does not incur additional costs when selling its products, and the buyer, who purchases fresh juice without preservatives at a very favorable price - 1,100 rubles per liter. By the way, it has remained unchanged since last year.

- Feel the difference: either buy it in a store at a price of 14 thousand per liter, or much cheaper straight from the birch tree, says the forester. - At the same time, the person himself sees that he bought not water, not a concentrate, but the most real, fresh birch sap. We also sell juice at a price of 1,300 rubles per liter directly in the forestry. But we do this as an exception for grandmothers or disabled people who do not have their own transport. And for the restWe give you coordinates where to go. The forester is constantly on duty there, meets the buyer who arrives in his car, checks the delivery note issued to him in the forestry indicating the displacement, as well as the payment receipt. That's the whole procedure - the buyer leaves with the juice.

The plan for collecting birch sap - 12 thousand liters per season - is carried out by Makeevskoe forestry without any problems.

-And all this is taken away by the population?

- Yes, and we don’t even have time to satisfy requests.

For those who want to harvest juice themselves, without intermediaries, a special plot is allocated, Nikolai Russu said. Then the juice will cost the person completely free. First you need to tell us how many liters you need, the forester will show you the birch trees and introduce you to the rules that must be followed when collecting. All you have to do is make the holes yourself with a screwdriver and then guard the tree so that you can then drain the sap from it into your own container.

- In what cases are people fined for collecting sap in the forest?

- When this is done on unauthorized logging sites and not according to the rules. For example, someone decided to drill 20 holes around the barrel, when a maximum of four could be made. The fines for such violations are considerable - up to 20 basic units, which is more than 3.5 million rubles.

Soon we turned onto the road towards the village of Tsykuny, in the area of ​​which there is a forest area captured in photographs and videos by our reader. And here is the 164th quarter, which is designated by a sign as a natural monument.

After 300 meters we saw the very plot to which we were heading. Nikolai Russu once again emphasized that it has nothing to do with the natural monument.

The forester met us Sergey Yakovlev:

- A lot of people come here, the juice doesn’t have time to drip,- he smiles. - I’ve been working here for several years, and the same people buy from year to year - both young people and retirees. Moreover, new ones are constantly being added. No one has ever complained about the quality of the juice, but they take it to cleanse their kidneys and give their children a pure product to drink. Some people put it in jars, others make kvass.

The forester is on duty here constantly, all daylight hours. He guards the plot, because there are, as he put it, barbarians who can tear the bags and take away the juice for which they have not paid.

This is how the juice flows inside the plastic bag along two grooves.

The forester says that the birch trees in this plot are more than 34 cm in diameter. According to the instructions, three cuts can be made on one tree, but they only make two.

- Even if there are cuts on the tree from last year, this year we have the right to make them on the other side of the trunk. The main thing is that the distance between the top lines of the cuts is at least 20 cm,- Nikolai shows Russ. - This is not amateur, but commercial harvesting of juice, and it follows the rules established throughout Belarus.So we maintain both the distance between the cuts and their depth.

- Can you take sap from birch trees that are not planned to be cut down?

- Of course not. This is prohibited. We do not have the right to collect birch sap on plots that have not been designated for felling by the forest management company. In such areas of the forest, no one will touch the birch tree, not only with a chainsaw, but even with screwdrivers.

- Can you comment on the garbage dump in the forest?- I remember another problem identified by our reader.

Nikolai Russu says that there really were mountains of garbage, but the workers of the Makeevsky forestry had already removed them.

- Our forestry is suburban, and garbage is a huge problem for us. In addition to the fact that there are many settlements near the forest, there are also about a dozen dacha cooperatives - about 5 thousand plots. Unfortunately, not all people are decent: some throw garbage where it’s supposed to, while others take it to the forest nearby,- he said.

I learned another interesting news from my interlocutor - soon the forestry department is going to install three video surveillance cameras in the forest to catch unscrupulous people.

- The cameras are small in size, they can be disguised as a birdhouse or a tree stump,- says Nikolai Russu. - But all the same, this will not solve the problem: we will catch some, but not others. The territory of Makeevsky forestry is 8,240 hectares, and there are only 13 foresters. There is only one most effective way - to stop bringing unnecessary trash here.

Birch sap loved by many residents of our country. It is very useful for the body, as it contains the substances it needs, and in a balanced amount. By drinking birch sap you can easily improve your health and, most importantly, satisfy your need for vitamins.

It seems that every resident of Russia has tried birch sap. Previously, back in Soviet times, it was produced by forestry enterprises. Nowadays, it’s rare to find a company producing birch sap. It is much more profitable to produce sparkling water or alcohol.

But birch sap It perfectly cleanses the blood, it is drunk to prevent oncology, in the postoperative period, it improves the condition of patients with arthritis and rheumatism, and also removes heavy metals from the body.

That's why birch sap preparation and its further sale is a great way to make money, especially if you revive in people’s memory knowledge about its benefits and positive qualities.

The best option for a novice entrepreneur is to establish contacts with enterprises involved in logging, hunters, farms, and so on.

You will also need to purchase vehicles with high off-road capability. Even if you just collect the juice yourself, you can earn decent money - from one tree per day you can get up to 10 liters. And if you go big and create an entire enterprise for the procurement and sale of birch sap, then the income will be very, very high. Prices for natural juices are high now, so the idea is promising.

In advance, you must find ways to market your products. You can sell juice through retail chains, restaurants, cafes, and so on.

You should pay maximum attention to the process of processing and storing the finished juice. After all, even if it is stored at a temperature below 5 degrees Celsius, the shelf life is no more than 5 days.

Therefore, if you want to preserve it for a longer period of time, you need to freeze it. This way you can win up to three more months. After this, the juice is often processed into wine or kvass. Thus, you can sell your finished products all year round.

Pay attention to the place birch sap preparations. After all, factors such as the proximity of large factories, highways, and railways can negatively affect the quality of products.