Adidas annually produces about 300 million pairs of shoes, and all of their European operations are done in Derventa and Prnjavor in BiH. Factory Sanino produces Copa Mundial football boots for Adidas, which are used for training.
Director Pazurevic has many years of experience in the production of shoes, and 18 years ago, together with his friends from Slovenia Martin Zilnik and Benjamin Fugin, he started with the production in his Derventa. At the beginning, they were producing protective footwear in the workshop that was located in a high school and hoped to show the people, especially young people, that there is work for those who want to work. After a few thousand pairs of shoes produced, many people realized that it makes sense to stay in their hometown. Adidas was already present in our country and Pazurevic, Zilnik and Fugin had connections, but none of this was a guarantee that they will get the job. It was important to offer quality at a low price.
“We dared to tell Adidas that we made 7,500 pairs of upper parts of football boots, and they said that they are satisfied. Everyone immediately asked for the price, and our price was acceptable for them. We were cheaper in relation to others at that time. We eventually increased the amount of produced pairs, so we came to a number of over 800,000 pairs per year. Since relations were developing in the right direction, Adidas decided to let us purchase raw materials by ourselves, which put our company in a new position. Thus, we are now buying raw materials at the world market from our own funds and with the consent of Adidas,” said Pazurevic.
As the workload was increasing, the number of workers increased as well. From 40 workers at the beginning, Sanino came to 850 workers. Awards started arriving for a good job as well. One of them is the Adidas Golden Boot that arrived in 2003, after shipment of million pairs of football boots. A year ago, the number of produced pairs amounted to 10 million.
However, Adidas is not the only partner of Sanino.
“We specialized in military and protective footwear. We are working with companies Meindl and Haix from Germany, and we are producing shoes for everyday use for an Austrian company. We produce over one million and 650,000 pairs every year. Of this number, 150,000 are finished products, and the rest are upper parts that our partners finish in their facilities,” said Director of Sanino.
Despite all the challenges, Sanino continues to work towards its goal – to be a leader in the production of footwear in the territory of South Eastern Europe.
(Source: A. Z./Klix.ba)
