More than a salami

PICK is a truly multicultural and Hungarian brand at the same time. Márk Pick was a grain merchant of Czech-Moravian origin who started making salami in 1878, because winter is a very low season for grain trading but also the ideal period for drying and smoking meat products. While the 30’s was a successful period for PICK, the 40’s brought nationalisation in 1948 and fusion with the Szeged Slaughterhouse and Szeged Refrigerating Company. A new salami plant was built in 1972-75, boosting production capacity to over 10,000 tonnes per year. Szegedi Szalámigyár és Húsüzem Rt. was privatised in 1992. After several changes in ownership, Délhús Zrt. and PICK Szeged merged into a single enterprise last year, with a 30 per cent market share in meat products and with three leading brands: PICK, Délhús and Ringa. While the merger has brought new opportunities, the risk of cannibalisation also needed to be avoided.– We do not intend to get rid of any of our brands – says László Kovács CEO. We had experimented with special flavours, but these were not successful. Regarding partially dried products and meat products, far more substantial changes took place in both products and packaging over the years – remembers the CEO.An example for innovation is the Scooby-Doo product line, developed primarily for children and with regard to using healthy ingredients. Following some harder years, it had to be communicated to the public in 2005 that a stable background for operation has been established with a new shareholder and that PICK is again made from swine bred in Hungary. – We have also invested a lot of effort into promoting the PICK brand abroad. Our most important project was the EUR two million TV advertising campaign in Germany last year. Regarding complex marketing, we are proud of this year’s introductory campaign for the Scooby-Doo product line, targeted at children – says László Szabó.