The biggest problem that Tudor Neculoiu, owner of meat producer Sergiana, had with a representative of the Romanian authorities, occurred when a quality control officer wanted to fine him because the amount of soybean contained was not featured on the salami label. The incident took place in one of the three stores which Tudor Neculoiu had opened in Bucharest, in an attempt to develop in Bucharest the Sergiana butchery model tested in 27 stores in Brasov and the surrounding area.

”Eventually, the inspector understood that we weren’t using soybeans or other additives in our charcuterie, and left us alone,” Tudor Neculoiu recalls about his experience with Bucharest - a market he has not placed a lot of faith in, anyway, given that he has already closed two of the three stores here, and that the Capital is not on the list of future openings. ”In the provinces, the market is the preferred place for shopping, but we discovered that in Bucharest - which is a very difficult market, anyway, primarily as far as supply is concerned - things are quite different; everybody goes to the supermarket for shopping,” says Neculoiu, who thinks a lot of the charm of the traditional way of shopping is lost in this way.

The word ”traditional” is echoed throughout the interview that BUSINESS Magazin did with Tudor Neculoiu. Tradition is in fact what inspired him to go into business in the first place, and his first plan took shape when Tudor Neculoiu was travelling across Europe with a traditional folk dance ensemble: ”When I saw the Bavaria and the Tirol area, I realised it was very similar to the place where I was born, Poiana Marului, and I realised that Romanians could also make money from rural tourism”. Neculoiu at the time was dreaming of building a tourism complex which would include a bakery, a milk plant and a charcuterie plant, in order to offer traditional products to foreigners coming to the Brasov area, like he had seen done in Western Europe.

In the early 1990s, he opened a bakery in Poiana Marului, whose profit he invested in a meat plant. The projects grew, but tourists failed to rush in. Because his dream of having a business in tourism did not come true, the businessman thought about turning it into something else, so, over a 20-year period, he built a group of companies which includes a pig farm, a slaughter house, a charcuterie plant, a 27-store chain and 5 restaurants.