Snack that Comes from the Cold

Russian attitude towards bread was always devout and almost religious. An old Russian proverb goes, “Bread heads everything”. Even when bread becomes stale thrifty Russians cut it into tiny cubes, salt them and dry in an oven. These little crisp bread rusks (sukhariki) were a traditional Russian home-made snack for ages. They are a bit similar to French croutons but are usually made from black or rye bread.



It’s really surprising that all through the 90’s nobody in Russia got an idea to launch a sukhariki brand. Such snacks as potato chips were introduced in this country only some 20 years ago. “Lay’s” commercials also introduced a new habit among teens – snacking, and even a new word “chipsy”. But still potato chips were ‘foreign’ and in 1998 an enterprising Muscovite Dmitry Vasiliev decided to introduce a new ‘patriotic’ snack – packaged sukhariki. At first, sukhariki were made by traditional methods but the success of the new brand “3 Korochki” (3 Crumbs) was so fabulous that Vasiliev’s company “Bridgetown Foods” built a new factory to produce sukhariki only.
Another big brand in Russian sukhariki business is “Sibirsky Bereg” from Novosibirsk. In 1999 this company started producing sukhariki brand “Kirieshki” in a small bakery – only 3000 small packages a day. In 2003 they already had enough money to spend more than a million dollars on a new factory near Tula. In 2005 “Sibirsky bereg” spent at least 4 million dollars on ads in Moscow alone.
Just in seven years an absolutely new product became the most popular packaged snack in Russia.