Croatia's bakery industry is facing a lot of challenges, and one of them is the twofold rise in the import of bread and pastry products since Croatia joined the European Union, it was said at the beginning of a three-day conference on the bakery sector in Osijek on Wednesday.

Addressing the event which brought together 250 experts and researchers from 15 countries, a vice-president of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK), Dragan Kovacevic, said that imports of bakery products totalled 87 million euros in 2018. Although exports have also increased and stood at EUR 28 million last year, they covered only a third of the imports.

In that context he mentioned the import of a large quantity of frozen bakery products from Germany, Italy, Slovenia and Serbia which amounted to was EUR 21.5 million on the aggregate last year.

Speaking of other challenges, Kovacevic underscored the closure of plants in the grain processing industry, trends of advertising low-salt food, demand for alternative types of bread and a lack of skilled labour force for that industry.

In 2017 there were 744 companies whose core business was the production of bakery and confectionery products, and in addition, there were more than 700 micro companies in this sector.