From England, directly in the heart of Olt. Two young people left abroad to become the “strawberry kings” in Strejești
Two people from Olt returned after five years abroad and established, with their hard-earned money, a strawberry farm in Olt county. They manage to put the first fruits of the season on the market. “Every spring we sell several tons without taking a single strawberry to market.”
Cristina now works in her own FOTo strawberry farm. Alina Mitran
The strawberry farm in Strejești, Olt, managed to bring the owners, the husband and wife Cristina and Florinel Mădularu, profit since the first year. They set it up six years ago with hard earned money in England. They had no intention of returning, but after five years abroad something happened at home and to be with a family member they changed their plans.
With the money saved, they built the first solar, investing approximately 10,000 euros. Later they also built the second one, and now they grow strawberries in the solar house and outdoors, the first harvested fruits being able to put them on the market right from the beginning of April. This year things have changed a bit, with the cold weather delaying the ripening by almost a month. Even so, the strawberries from Strejești are among the first brought to the buyers' table.
“You have to sell what is wanted”
Florinel Madularu had never done agriculture before. He worked for a very short time in England, not even two months, on a farm, after which he found a much better-paid job in the courier business. His wife, on the other hand, worked for a year and a half in a strawberry and raspberry greenhouse and an even longer period in a flower greenhouse.
What they achieved together in Strejești developed according to the husband's plan. He first studied consumer preferences and thought that his business should answer this question: what do people want? And he found strawberries and cherries among his favorites, so he stopped at them.
The two spouses try new FOTo varieties every year. personal archive
“If you want to succeed in something, you have to sell what is wanted. And in this area there was a need, the demand was high, and I said that if the demand is high, let's have an offer to match”, the farmer revealed. The first built solar has 600 square meters. The sale went so well the first year that buyers would come to the gate, hand over their money and run out of strawberries to give. That's how they built the second one, of 800 square meters, and they also plant strawberries outdoors on another half a hectare.
The demand is still there and probably if they produced even more they would be able to sell everything, but the workforce is hard to find. “Honestly, we only expand if we can find labor available for at least six months out of the 12 of the year,” says the farmer.
Cherries in protected space, the next stage
And because it turned out from the market research that cherries are also sought-after fruit, he also planted cherries, the fruits of which he will pick in about two weeks. However, the plan is to plant 150 cherry trees in one of the solariums, along with strawberries in a suspended system (a system he will build this summer).
Florinel Mădularu plans to plant cherry trees in the solarium PHOTO: personal archive
“I want to sell Romanian cherries in April, starting from April 1, together with our strawberries. There are several varieties of intensive cherry that are cultivated just like the vineon the wire and directed”explains Florinel Madularu. He has studied everything in detail and is convinced that things will go well.
“We plant every year”
For the fruits that bring them profit in the spring, it is work all year round. After harvesting the plants are removed and planted again in autumn. “All our plants are young, we plant every year”says the farmer. He also likes to try different varieties. He took two courses in England and obtained a certificate to be able to apply plant protection products. He is the only person who applies the treatments on his farm, treatments that are done long before the harvest.
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“The treatments are primarily preventive, done by me and only me. (…) We start working on strawberries very early, as early as January. Then the plants really need to be treated. At the harvest, before we start harvesting at least 10 days, we have a machine with which all the fruits, all the vegetables, even the water and the meat are tested. And we start the treatments, we finish the treatments and we start the fruit testing. When the fruit testing is ok, we wait again a few days – a week and start harvesting. After we started the harvest, the treatments are already over”, assures the farmer. Florinel Mădularu invites the representatives of the control institutions to take samples, the need for such authoritative voices to pronounce on product safety is felt by all food producers who respect the rules.
Strawberries remain among the most sought after products PHOTO: Cristina Mădularu's personal archive
After the harvest is finished, the plants are removed and the solariums are closed for a month, when they are at oven temperatures, they are disinfected, after which in the second part of August, planting begins again for the next year's crop.
What he enjoys most is that, out of 12 months a year, he works, he says, about half the time.
“I like to say 6 months why? That I am master of my time, I can do what I want, when I want and how I want 80%. There are the other 20% who impose certain periods on me for the plants”, says the farmer.
Fruits – sold from home and delivered to three nearby cities
“We manage to sell several tons of strawberries every spring without taking a single strawberry to market. Only direct delivery in three cities – Drăgășani, Slatina and Craiova – and door-to-door sales, because we have a lot of customers who can't wait to stop and buy our strawberries”, says the farmer. He tried, at one point, to conclude a deal with a chain of stores, but came to a bitter conclusion. “They want to eat a slice of salami and a slice of bread from a sandwich, and give me only what's left, a slice of bread, for my work. And I said – I limit myself, I produce less but I appreciate my work and sell at its true value.” the farmer also specified.
Buyers begin to differentiate between a quality, fresh product and the fruits picked before ripening that they find in stores, so after paying 7-8 lei for a 500-gram casserole in the supermarket for imported fruits and tasting them, they choose the latter, even if they cost 20 lei for the same quantity.
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“It just smells like a strawberry, don't ask me why it's 20 lei at my place and 8 lei in the store, never”the farmer also specified.
“In England we weren't allowed to touch a strawberry”
Cristina Madularu worked in agriculture and in England. The first experience, over a year and a half, was in the greenhouses of a Portuguese. He grew raspberries and strawberries and was so drastic that he told the workers that he would “fly” if he saw them taste the fruit.
“He told us like this: if I catch you eating a strawberry, put it in your mouth, I'll fly you all! We were not allowed to eat. If we wanted, we would pay him in the evening or he would deduct the amount from our salary to give us a strawberry casserole”Cristina recalled.
Cristina also worked in a flower greenhouse in England PHOTO: personal archive
After the experience in the Portuguese's greenhouse, where only Romanians worked, another much more pleasant one followed, in the flower greenhouses. “Then I worked for an Italian. It was much better. I loved working on flowers. I put labels, weeded them, cleaned them of dryness, put them on carts and that was it.” continued Cristina Madularu.
From the salary that Cristina earned in England, the two paid the expenses, and they saved the husband's salary, which was higher. Thus they allowed themselves to become masters of their work and enjoy today the project built with their own hands from scratch.
