History

Norofert Group is the leading Romanian producer of organic agricultural products.

Norofert’s story was started in 2000 by Florin Popescu and until today, it remains a family business, currently being run by Vlad Popescu. Initially, between 2000 and 2010, Norofert was the importer and distributor of high-quality agricultural inputs from western markets to Romania. At that time, Norofert was the only company that has brought technologically advanced fertilizers to Romania. In 2010, Norofert saw a niche forming globally in the area of organic fertilizers and has switched its focus and begun importing high-quality organic products from Spain, US and Germany and distributing them to local farmers. In 2015, the year that Vlad Popescu took over the business, the company has renounced on the import activity and started its own fertilizer production facility that grew steadily throughout the years.

Innovation

In August 2018, Norofert launched a premiere on the European market by introducing all its products in the form of an effervescent tablet. By replacing classic liquid or powder products used in agriculture with the tablet, Norofert removed completely the risk of fermentation at high temperatures, extended the product’s shelf-life to 5 years as well as significantly reduced storage and space need for transportation thus revolutionizing the organic agriculture sector. The effervescent tablet has so far been sold on the Romanian, French, and Spanish markets. Further expansion of Norofert’s innovative product is planned for the coming period. The effervescent tablet by Norofert has been recognized as an innovation, most notably by Business Magazin as an ’Innovative Project of 2018’  and received ’Best Innovation Award’ from Romania Insider publication in 2019.

Capital Markets

In July 2019 the company made a private placement for its shares, having raised RON 7,12 million, and from that moment Norofert began a process of accelerated development. With the help of the capital attracted from investors on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, the company expanded its team with 33 new members, rented and equipped a new factory 10 times bigger than the previous factory (currently the largest fertilizer production unit organic from Romania) with 4 production lines, for liquid organic fertilizers, conventional liquid fertilizers, effervescent tablets and granular soil fertilizers. Norofert’s portfolio reached over 60 different products, grouped in 3 main lines from 24 products as they had before the private placement.

Encouraged by the positive response of investors on BVB, in January 2020, Norofert raised another RON 11.5 million by issuing corporate bonds, subsequently listed on the AeRO market on June 5, 2020 (symbol NRF25). This capital helped the company to strengthen its presence on the US market, establishing in the middle of 2020 a Norofert subsidiary in the State of Ohio – Norofert USA, LLC and obtaining selling authorization for 6 Norofert products on the US market.

The company listed on the AeRO market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange under the symbol ‘NRF’ on March 3rd, 2020. Since being listed on the AeRO market on March 3, 2020, Norofert’s market capitalization has increased from RON 20 million to over RON 111 million. 

Business lines

Research, production and selling of organic inputs

Norofert’s main activity is the development and production of its own recipes for inputs for organic and conventional agriculture (since August 2019). In addition to the range of 65 different products, grouped into 3 main lines, the company designs customized crop preparation and optimization schemes that allow adapting organic inputs to the specific needs of the crop depending on the soil, weather conditions and the particularities of each crop.

Norofert currently produces agricultural fertilizers and inputs which are available in the market under 3 different brands – Norofert Organics, inputs for organic farming (large crops), Karisma, inputs for conventional agriculture (large crops) and Norofert Fito, fertilizers and phytosanitary for gardening and small farmers.

Organic farming

Another new line of business for Norofert, introduced in 2021, is organic farming and in this sense, from 2022, the entire surface of 1.000 ha of the company’s farm in Zimnicea will become certified organic.

Grain trading

The third line of business of the company is trading in organic cereals and is above all the guarantee of recovering debts from the market. Following the completion of the process of growing and harvesting, Norofert takes over the customers’ products and exports them to the final processors, with whom it has previously concluded trading contracts. Thus the cycle of organic farming is completed and integrated. Through this ecosystem, farmers capitalize on their products at a better price, and the final processor has the guarantee of product quality.

This strategy helps the company to expand its customer base by offering them, in addition to technology packages, consulting for obtaining subsidies, ensuring product traceability and a direct market to the final processor at a better price than a conventional trader.