Kraš () is a
Croatia
Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...
n food company based in
Zagreb
Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...
, specializing in
confectionery
Confectionery is the Art (skill), art of making confections, or sweet foods. Confections are items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates, although exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confections are divided into two bro ...
products. In 2012, Kraš was, after
Podravka, the second largest Croatian exporter of food.
History
The company traces its origins from two factories from the early 20th century: "Union", founded in 1911, by Yugoslavian Jews, including Slavaljub Deutsch, the oldest surviving chocolate manufacturer in southeastern Europe; and "Bizjak", founded in 1923, which manufactured toast, cookies and wafers. Deutsch was subsequently murdered in Auschwitz and his property seized. These two companies, as well as a number of smaller confectionery manufacturers from Zagreb, merged in 1950 and took the name Kraš, in honor of
Josip Kraš
Josip Kraš (26 March 1900 – 18 October 1941) was a Croatian communist and Partisans (Yugoslavia), partisan who died in World War II and was proclaimed a People's Hero of Yugoslavia.
Kraš was born in the village of Vuglovec (near Ivanec and ...
, a union leader and prominent Croatian communist who was killed in World War II. To date, no restitutions have been made to Deutsch's surviving descendants.
The company was in social ownership during
SFR Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...
, and privatized in 1992 into a private shareholding company with capital estimated at 135,769,000
DM. In the aftermath of
Yugoslav breakup, Kraš lost two-thirds of its market.
In 1997, Kraš received
ISO 9001
The ISO 9000 family is a set of international standards for quality management systems. It was developed in March 1987 by International Organization for Standardization. The goal of these standards is to help organizations ensure that they meet ...
certification.
In 2011, Kraš acquired the
Osijek
Osijek () is the fourth-largest city in Croatia, with a population of 96,848 in 2021. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja ...
confectionary company Karolina, formed in 1891 and known as Sloboda between 1947 and 2003. It was integrated into the Kraš group in 2021.
See also
*
Bajadera
*
List of bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturers
A bean-to-bar company produces chocolate by processing cocoa beans into a product in-house, rather than melting chocolate from another manufacturer. They operate on a small scale (generally producing batches of chocolate smaller than ) without lec ...
References
Sources
*
External links
*
Kraš Bajadera
{{CROBEX companies
Croatian chocolate companies
Food and drink companies of Croatia
Companies listed on the Zagreb Stock Exchange
Food and drink companies established in 1911
Croatian brands
Manufacturing companies based in Zagreb
1911 establishments in Croatia
European chocolate bars