Photo: Sergei Mossine
The emergence and expansion of the Vitis Industries is the story of a husband and wife's sheer hard work that has turned a small alcohol brewing company into an agriculture, manufacturing, and retail giant in Papua New Guinea. Vitis industries is a family business owned by Sergei Mossine, his wife Vikki and their four children.
The story highlights a family's commitment, determination, and challenges. Hardworking couple and husband and wife team - Sergei from Russian origin and Vikki from the Central Province in Papua New Guinea built up the Vitis industries Ltd Group for the past 18 years to its status.
Vitis Industries Ltd Group is a 100 per cent PNG nationally owned company that started with only six employees in 2004 - to more than 2,000 plus workers today. From its humble beginnings in 2004, the family company initially started buying coffee and vanilla beans from local farmers in Kairiku, Rigo and Goilala districts of the Central Province to distill five Russian brands of alcoholic beverages.
Today the Mossine family currently manufactures and retails alcohol beverages, wine, beer, water, fruit cordials, cigarettes, and food products in four different Provinces in PNG and are still expanding into other parts of the country. Apart from this they also own a vineyard, coffee and vanilla plantation and a coffee factory to produce washed parchment coffee in Wau Bulolo, Morobe Province.
As put simply by Sergei Mossine; "In business it is important to have partners that you can trust and share your responsibilities. A good wife is a natural business partner for her husband in life and in business".
Vitis General Manager Sergei Mossine is a former Soviet Union Army Lieutenant who served in combat operations in Africa and Afghanistan in his youth, Sergei later gained a scientific degree of Doctor of Science in Thermodynamics and became the Vice-Professor and Scientific Secretary of Moscow Railways University. He has also worked in state owned and private companies in various capacities such as food manufacturing, agro-industrial projects, distillation, equipment manufacturing, banking, computing, import-export trading, and property development until his move to PNG in 1994.
His main role in Vitis industries is the development of all products (spirits, coffee products, food & beverage, beer, and wine), banking, money management, production, construction, property development and sales.
A huge population of the PNG community find the prices of Vitis products affordable compared to larger established competitors.
"We started Vitis Industries with six employees and first five alcoholic beverages: Citronka, Tonika, Vodka Extra, Vodka Northern and Vodka Siberian. It was a small share of market then, " Mr Mossine said.
Today his Wife and himself have expanded the Vitis Business Group with various business ventures and a total of more than 2,000 employees.
Vitis has also expanded their own retail outlet in the Nation's Capital of Port Moresby with a three-story shopping mall building which includes a supermarket, department store, pharmacy, Liquor shop, seven food outlets, fashion shop, sports shop and 50 other shops that sell different products and provide different services.
Mr Mossine said his main objective is to invest in PNG, we must re-invest all our profits in PNG to create jobs and opportunities.
"It’s not easy to manage such a big and diversified business, especially in a country like Papua New Guinea with underdeveloped infrastructure, expensive and unreliable electricity, poor banking system, shortage of experienced managers and skilled workers, expensive coastal shipping, high taxes etc.
"But we want to help the country to be more developed, to create more jobs and to process locally grown crops in PNG to give a better chance in life to our employees regardless of the obstacles.
"When we develop our business then we must also set up our new goals, new targets and new ventures. We became involved in the coffee business because in 2010 our main popular alcoholic drink was 'Coffee Punch' and it was quite expensive to buy roasted coffee from other factories, that was when we decided that instead of spending money on expensive roasted coffee, we will utilise this money to establish our own coffee plantation and coffee factory to reduce extra spending and cost.
"It is a similar situation with retail business, many shops had hesitated to sell our products, therefore we decided to also invest in our own retail shops and outlets as well as wholesale warehouses.
"In terms of issues with electricity, we have installed solar panels on our buildings because the price of electricity from PNG Power Ltd is very expensive and there are too many constant blackouts. With solar energy we generate about 500,000 KWA at our processing plant and 300,000 KWA at our shopping mall in Port Moresby. Solar power has huge potential, but it is completely neglected by the PNG Government," Mr Mossine said.
In relation to coastal and domestic shipping, "A 20ft container from Port Moresby to Kokopo is three times more expensive than to deliver the same 20ft container from Port Moresby to Shanghai. Due to these amounting expenses, we diverted our spending to purchasing a ship to carry and transport our products and containers across PNG" he said.
Despite the relentless challenges and obstacles in maintaining a successful business, Mr Mossine wished PNG a great future and prosperity moving forward. The example of the growth and success of Vitis shows that anything can be achieved through dedication and hard work.
"To become successful a businessman or woman requires special talent, patience and vision. Working together we can move PNG into a modern industrialized era to create prosperity and a decent livelihood for every Papua New Guinean". Mr Mossine said.
