He founded a business during the pandemic that was a huge success – now even limiting production to maintain quality

Obels dūmas is located in the Biržai district, in the town of Vinkšniniai. It is not a store, as you might think at first glance, but a real family workshop in the backyard of your house.

When we arrive, we are greeted by the hosts themselves, Tautvydas leads to the gazebo and Arūnė treats them with meat products.

“We produce smoked and meat products. We both smoke and sell meat ourselves. We just don’t grow it ourselves ”, the owner presents his products without expecting anything and explains that this idea arose during a pandemic.

The man also points to the outbuilding next to the gazebo where we sit, and says that the idea of ​​using the building and doing something in it has been around for a long time.

“There was more time during the quarantine, we started to repair and maintain the building a bit, and in the spring, in March, we opened the company,” he says.

In the past, Tautvydas says that he also worked for himself and that his job was related to auto repair, but he closed the business.

Arūnė, Tautvydas’s wife, adds that even before starting their business, the family paid a lot of attention to the composition of meat products, and in supermarkets, you could hardly find quality products without additives with the letter E.

“The man’s family used to make meat products, but for their own consumption.

That’s why we came up with the idea that we should start with ourselves, so that we can at least eat a quality product ourselves, ”he says.

The family says they buy meat from Lithuanian farmers, bring it to the workshop and process it.

“You classify what you make of something, you put it aside. We also produce cold cuts, both for hot and cold smoking. Then we smoke, we pack,” says Tautvydas about the process and calculates that it produces and prepares about 10 meat products in total.

“Today I produce about 150 kg of meat products a week and there is already a lack of capacity. There is another room, we plan to expand, build ripening rooms, we would like to produce natural skilandis.

There are also thoughts of building another smokehouse, you need a helper. The market and the demand are really there ”, says the owner and is often explained working until 22-23. late, but I just don’t want to produce more, because one of the goals is to maintain good product quality.

According to both of them, this business is more of Tautvydas’ occupation, and Arūnė, in addition to helping her husband, continues to work for another company, but helping Tautvydas with sales and burning works.

When asked if she doesn’t plan to come to her husband’s aid, Tautvydas shakes her head and laughs, and Arūnė adds that she has no such plans yet.

“While we were testing together at the beginning of the business, we got mad in 5 minutes,” he laughs.

The courage to start a business during a pandemic was really necessary for the family, but as they both say, it was still clear that quality food would always find its buyer even in the darkest of times.

Oh, it took a lot of investment to make the idea come true. To do this, the family received support for the purchase of special equipment, but these funds alone were not enough. We had to collect 10,000. Eur loan, and Tautvydas also built a meat smokehouse in his family’s yard.

Today’s customers find familiar products mainly through social media, people recommend products by word of mouth.

“The stock exchanges are not big, the languages ​​are spreading rapidly,” explains Tautvydas, but ensures that the main buyers are still local, but they have also had to send meat to Kaunas, and buyers from Radviliškis have also come to buy it. .

The official launch of the online meat store is planned.

“It will be launched soon, but until now the delivery of meat with the help of couriers is difficult due to the weather, all the heat, although the products are vacuumed,” says Arūnė.

The idea of ​​a small shop is not unknown: Tautvydas also hints, but says it still takes time, because his business is only a few months away, so the deliberations are left for the future.

They both agree on the name of the company after a long discussion. At first, according to him, the idea was to follow in the footsteps of “Biržų duonas” and name the company “Biržų mėsa”, but in the end the name was invented by the owner himself.

Tautvydas came over and said, “How about Obels smoke?”

We are the ones who have confirmed that name. He smokes meat with an apple, so the name was very appropriate, ”says Arūnė.