EFFICIENCY. RESPONSIBILITY. ENVIRONMENT CULTURE.

About: Dr. Viktor SZABÓ

Managing Director, Rural Development, Agricultural and Horticultural Engineer.
He runs the company with his father, Imre Szabó, a respected mechanical engineer.
He took his GCE in the United States.
He graduated from the University of Agricultural Sciences in Debrecen.
Following his PhD studies, he received his doctoral degree in 2016.
His wife, Veronika, is the head of the company’s juice plant.
The name Bold Agro means an agricultural enterprise that radiates development, determination and boldness.
With its more than 150 permanent and 150 temporary employees, this family business in Derecske, in the Northern Great Plain of Hungary, is one of the most efficient, one hundred percent Hungarian-owned farms in Hungary.
In 2019, they won the title of the Most Beautiful Estate in Hungary.
The recognition of their work is indicated by the Hungarian Agricultural Quality Award, the Excellent Hungarian Food Trademark, the High Quality Pork Trademark and the Green Innovation Grand Prize for environmentally conscious farming.

UBM thanked them for their work with the Diamond Partner Award.

– The veterinary, technological and hygienic discipline that has been strictly required in our farm for years has provided a solid basis for the protection against the coronavirus.

The disinfection of workers, changing rooms and dining areas, passenger and car traffic is now carried out according to even stricter regulations.

We organized the two-shift work at our animal farms. Quite please, and in a voice of appreciation, I can say that our employees were our partners in this routine, even when they had to sleep in the farm in this dangerous situation.

This understanding attitude is the result of our attention to our employees and our mutually beneficial relationship.

About five years ago, we began to address the situation of our employees, and their work atmosphere, more consciously than before. As a first step in the development of corporate culture, we surveyed the opinions of our employees. Anonymous questionnaires were completed in working groups.

We analyzed the answers with the help of experts and found out where the biggest lags are compared to the expectations and needs of our employees. Since then, we have been building and monitoring our employee relationships with these results in mind.

Today financially and morally recognized, mostly local people work at Bold Agro. Based on a need for commitment, professional knowledge and quality work, our motto has been distilled down to four words: efficiency, responsibility, environment culture.

Bold Agro is a diversified farm.

Our main activities are animal husbandry, crop production, fruit growing, juice production and hospitality.

Our crop production sector produces maize and barley on 1,300 hectares of arable land, adapted to our natural conditions, primarily for animal feed.

Our complex crop production system based on the latest technological elements helps environmentally conscious farming, water management and improving soil fertility.

In our 180-hectare modern orchard we mainly produce apples and cherries, the best of which we make juices from, and sell them under the DerJuice brand name.

Derecske Alma won the Hortico Product Grand Prix.

Our hospitality branch, the highly popular Apple Blossom Restaurant, was suspended during the virus, but the staff, chefs and waiters were not left without work: they planted trees and assembled an ice net system in the orchard.

We have been working with UBM for many years on the bases on mutual trust in organizing our feed technology. We buy high quality premixes, protein carriers and pig feeds from the company. We set up joint experiments and we put together individual recipes.

UBM is our well-prepared, reliable and excellent partner.

Our pig breeding took its first steps about two decades ago and has now developed into a modern, efficient main business.

We work with 3300 sows. We sell 110,000 porkers with excellent slaughter properties every year.

The foundations of our pork sector were the main lessons my father learned in his study trip to the Netherlands: how to keep pigs in a different, and better, way? In response to this question, we developed and applied our “Comfort Meat Program” several years ago. One of the tangible results and recognition of its success is our “High Quality Pork (KMS) trademark.

In addition to professional recognition, the most important indicator for us is the satisfaction of our consumers. This trademark guarantees and emphasizes that our product is a reliable food with a unique, succulent taste from our pigs fed with GMO-free grain.

The devil lies in the details of pig farming. It is not enough to monitor, control and manage the processes of farrowing, pig and piglet rearing or fattening. In addition, we record, measure and analyze everything. Our experience is: whatever we measure will improve.

We try to continuously monitor the domestic and world market situation of the pig sector. This is especially important during the coronavirus.

We consider it natural that we are there in the life of our immediate environment and the communities of the surrounding villages, we help their efforts according to their needs and our possibilities. We support local communities, traditional carnival balls and harvest days, children’s arts groups, charity events and sports. All the events that people consider important, where they educate themselves, have fun and relax.

We expand our professional knowledge, we are constantly learning.

 

We are in constant contact with the University of Agricultural Sciences of Debrecen and other scientific institutes and internationally renowned consultants. Every year, several students from the university apply to us for internships and, more recently, for dual training. We provide a practical ground for the research of PhD students and we accept students who prepare their diploma theses.

Written and edited by: Mr. Károly FEHÉR