Exported “stocks” agricultural products (meat, milk, butter etc.) are often supplied in accordance with the requirements set by each individual exporting company. This leads to the fact that the same product has a difference for each supplier (i.e. expiration dates, humidity and fat indicators etc.). As a consequence, foreign buyers cannot form a single supply pool of the products from different suppliers of the same country, which results in the fact that the manufacturers do not complement each other in foreign markets.

The best solution of this issue may be the development of industry brands and standards for export products that would unify the characteristics of typical (stocks) types of agricultural products. Such products supplied by different manufacturers united by the standard can be easily formed into the single purchase lots, which can help to significantly expand the pool of buyers, decrease the logistic and transaction costs, and allow manufacturers to switch from the format of unnecessary competition to cooperation in terms of export supplies (this is most of all important in terms of pricing: identical products may have the same price positioning).

When developing industry brands and quality standards, we can take care of the following tasks:

• Defining the formal requirements for product quality and safety in accordance with the requirements of main export countries. Using them as a foundation, it is possible to form a basis of product characteristics, which would guarantee its delivery to the most significant export regions.
• Defining the variable requirements for various types of products in export countries: more precisely the requirements not set by the export country but are rather specifically set by the buyers of different countries (e.g. specific requirements of retail chains for product packaging and composition).
• Developing of the industry brand’s communication platform. Based on the data gathered from the research of requirements of both end-customers and trade companies’ preferences, a brand is developed that can be registered in target export countries.