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What do Mongolian mint vodka, lemon beer and wild berry sparkling water have in common? All the flavours used are made by WILD Berlin, Germany\u2019s oldest essence manufacturer. And all these innovative drinks were introduced by Mongolia\u2019s leading beverage enterprise, APU, after employee Gerel Ganchimeg returned from the MP in Germany in 2015.<\/p>\n
Ulaanbaatar.<\/strong> For over twenty years, mixed beer beverages have been a fixture of any supermarket or beverage store\u2019s regular product range. They account for a significant share of beer sales, and new flavours spring up all the time in hopes of beguiling the bored palettes of spoiled customers. Since August 2016, Mongolians have also been enjoying new made-in-Mongolia beer blends. Trend-setting consumers in Ulaanbaatar, Erdenet and Darkhan can now wet their whistles with \u201cBliss\u201d, beer mixed with lemon and lime, grapefruit and pineapple, or mango and peach. \u201cOur beer and fruit mixes are absolutely novel here,\u201d Gerel Ganchimeg says. She is Head of Quality and Innovation Management at APU and was directly involved in developing the special beverage line. As part of the MP, she had the opportunity to try out 18 different flavours at WILD Berlin and brought her six favourites back home. Some now give Bliss its unique taste.<\/p>\n The jury is still out on whether Bliss truly appeals to Mongolian taste buds. But, as Ganchimeg learned on a tour of ArcelorMittal, even if it is a flop, introducing innovative new products is an excellent and essential first step. ArcelorMittal opened its doors to MP participants at its company headquarters in Eisenh\u00fcttenstadt in Brandenburg, where the visiting executives gained insight into both the company\u2019s steel plant and its corporate innovation model. \u201cIt takes a huge number of ideas to generate just a few hits. I\u2019d never realised that before\u201d, Ganchimeg says. She immediately adapted the innovation model for APU. Today every production unit has an innovation box for employees to submit their ideas. Every month the three best suggestions are selected, and all the ideas gathered are presented to the management board every six months. The board then decides which suggestions show the most potential and are worth pursuing. At Ganchimeg\u2019s initiative, APU is also trying out flavoured sparkling water. The new beverage is marketed as Orgiluun and customers can choose between wild berry, watermelon and grapefruit. For something higher octane, the enterprise has also come up with a new line of vodkas. Taiga vodka flavours include lemon and cucumber and chili and honey. All the aromas used are also from the Berlin flavour specialists.<\/p>\n APU has a history of working with German firms that predates the MP. It produces Kaltenberg, a wheat-beer, under license for K\u00f6nig Ludwig International. It is brewed in Mongolia in accordance with the German purity law and APU benefits from the fact that many of its brewers completed their training in Germany. Some of APU\u2019s long-standing German partners were willing to offer MP participants an in-depth look into various departments and share their managerial experience. During a visit to J\u00e4germeister, Ganchimeg learned a lot about quality management. \u201cWe were using around 80 raw materials in production, but we didn\u2019t have any kind of register or rules in place\u201d, she says. The 45-year-old food scientist set up a raw materials catalogue based on the J\u00e4germeister model, which is now in use at APU. Ganchimeg\u2019s overall assessment of the impact of the MP is positive: \u201cDuring the programme, I realised that German SMEs can serve as good blueprints for Mongolian companies. A lot of their best practices transfer well, especially within a particular industry\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What do Mongolian mint vodka, lemon beer and wild berry sparkling water have in common? All the flavours used are made by WILD Berlin, Germany\u2019s oldest essence manufacturer. 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