Our Company is the leading producer of dairy, baby food and beverage products in Russia and the CIS. Founded in 1992, WBD has 37 processing plants in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Central Asia as well as distribution networks in 26 cities in Russia and the CIS, serving 280 million customers. Today, the Company has more than 19,500 employees. We make traditional and original dairy products, juices, nectars, and baby food.
Since 2002, the Company has been acquiring successful companies in Russia’s regions and the CIS, while making substantial investments in their modernization. In addition, we made changes in the way we make several of our core products, to ensure they are produced as close as possible to where they are sold.
The Company’s mission statement reflects our core values: “Wimm-Bill-Dann helps the entire family live healthier by enjoying our nutritious and delicious food and beverage products every day throughout their lives.”
Our products help people to live healthier lives and improve their well-being, and this is becoming ever more important as more and more consumers pursue healthier lifestyles. This is embodied in the Russian government’s long-term national project on health, which is based on the idea that the health of each individual is a vital contribution to the health of the country as a whole.
Our shares are listed at NYSE in the form of American Depository Receipts (ADRs) under the ticker “WBD” and on the Russian Trading System (RTS) in the form of ordinary shares (RTS: WBDF). In addition, WBD shares are included in the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange’s (MICEX) quotation list.
Wimm-Bill-Dann today is ranked among the most successful mid-sized companies in the world, with sales amounting to US$1.8 billion in 2006.
We are the leading dairy producers in Russia and Ukraine. We maintain strong market positions in traditional dairy products, yogurts, dairy deserts and cheese. Our Dairy Division contributes 75% of the Company’s revenues. According to agency AC Nielsen, we control a 34% share of the Russian market for packaged dairy products.
Our Little House in the Village, Wonder, Happy Milkman, Neo and Bio-Max brands are among the best recognized in Russia. Our Domik v Derevne branded milk has been awarded the title “People’s Choice” in the category for dairy products for several years running.
In 2006, we established an entirely new market segment in Russia, “fresh chocolate”, with the launch of our Morand branded truffles. In 2007, we launched the revolutionary new functional product, Neo Beauty, which helps to preserve the health and appearance of nails, skin and hair.
Wimm-Bill-Dann has one of the best raw material bases among Russian dairy producers. Since 1999, we have been implementing the Milk Rivers program, to provide our external suppliers with advanced equipment on favorable financing terms in order to help ensure that our plants are supplied with raw milk.
In addition, in 2005 we launched a new, stand-alone business unit called Agro, which owns five farms located in in Leningrad Region in Northwest Russia and Krasnodar Province in Southern Russia.
We are also a leading Russian producer of juice and mineral water products. Our most famous Russian juice brands include J7 and Favorite Garden. The beverages business is also represented by Wonderberry fresh berry drink and mineral water products drawn from environmentally safe natural springs, such as Essentuki. According to agency Business Analytica, our products accounted for 19% of the Russian juice market in 2006.
We have been making baby food under the Agusha trademark since 1996. Today, in addition to dairy products, this brand includes juices, fruit, meat and vegetables purees, as well as products for pregnant and nursing women. According to market research on the baby-food market conducted by Ńomcon TGI, 81% of consumers are aware of the Agusha brand , the highest rate of brand awareness among all baby food brands.
We are proud of our brands. Our current efforts are aimed at strengthening our leading trademarks. We closely monitor the marketplace to ensure we anticipate and react in a timely fashion to changes in consumer demand.
Wimm-Bill-Dann was the first company in Russia to implement international best practices in corporate governance. Indeed, for many Russian companies of a similar profile, our efforts proved to be an important catalyst for change. We have demonstrated that a Russian company outside of the oil, gas and telecoms business could achieve a listing on the NYSE. .
In 2007, the international ratings agency Standard & Poors confirmed WBD's Corporate Governance Score at 7+ (7.7 on the Russian national scale). This is the highest rating assigned to a Russian company.
Wimm-Bill-Dann is a signatory to the Social Charter of Russian Business adopted by Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Along with others who have signed the charter, we are convinced that there need be no contradiction between business goals and social responsibility. Indeed, the two complement each other and we believe that business, the government and society should work together according to the principles of law and on a transparent basis.
We believe that our products are our primary contribution to the economic and social wellbeing of Russia and the countries of the CIS. All of our products are subject to rigorous testing and monitoring in order to guarantee their safety and high quality.
Today we have clear strategy and know that by 2010 we want to become a truly world-class food producer. We believe that we have put in place everything necessary in order to achieve our goals.
So, Just Who is Wimm-Bill-Dann?
What is the creature depicted in Wimm-Bill-Dann’s logo? This question has occupied me for a long time. One newspaper article referred to it in passing as a ‘big-eared goblin’. Really! Isn’t obvious to all that Wimm-Bill-Dann is a mouse in a chef’s hat?
Notes of a Novice
Further research demonstrated that it wasn’t obvious to everyone. At one firm, a partner of WBD, they assured me that Wimm-Bill-Dann is an elephant. “Nothing of the sort,” a journalist friend said. “What sort of elephant is that? I think it’s a hare.”
At the headquarters of Wimm-Bill-Dann itself, where a big portrait of the curious big-eared creation beams straight at the entrance, to the question, “What’s with the animal?”, they answered, “Well, it’s not known exactly. It was such a long time ago, you know. In general, we call him ‘our little rat’.”
Anyway, it’s a rodent. But why does everyone talk about his creation like it was an event that happened in the 4th century BC? The Company is not even 15 years old, surely someone knows the name of the mouse’s creator, surely someone could ring him (the artist, not the mouse) and ask, what is the deal?
It was without any particular hope of success that I asked this question again and again. That was until I heard the answer from people who worked at Wimm-Bill-Dann in the very first years. “It’s not a mouse,” witnesses of these legendary times said firmly. “It’s a dog. Andrei Sechin’s dog.”
Call to Chicago
Artist Andrei Sechin, the creator of the Wimm-Bill-Dann logotype, now lives and works in Chicago. Returning our telephone call, Andrei said that it really was his dog Barry, a schnauzer, who served as the prototype for Wimm-Bill-Dann. A worthy beast, a participant in many exhibitions, he was the holder of 32 medals. By the way, he is not only depicted in the Wimm-Bill-Dann logotype, but on one of the boxes of Russia brand chocolate candies, which Sechin also designed.
- When I drew the first version of Wimm-Bill-Dann, Sergei Plastinin said, “But this is absolutely your dog”. So I had to change the portrait a bit. In particular, I got rid of the whiskers – I had at first drawn him with a dog’s whiskers…
- It was in 1992, when WBD’s offices were still in a few rooms in building on Myasnitskaya Street in Moscow. Sergei Plastinin and Mikhail Dubinin had one office for the two of them and we discussed the design for J7 juice with them, roughly speaking, sitting on a windowsill. The whole Company was just a couple dozen people. We did everything anew, for in our market everything was an innovation. Before J7, no one did juice in packets. There was no practice of ‘naming’ food products. On the can it was simply and curtly written: ‘Cherry Juice’, ‘Apple Juice’. By the way, the first WBD milk, in accordance with this tradition, was simply named ‘M’ for milk. But this was already a brand.
- These days few people remember that at the very beginning WBD had a different logotype by a different creator. On the logotype was an animal which looked like a lemur, with a small body, a big head, a long tail and giant eyes. The eyes were so sad that it very soon became clear that we had to change the animal. So I didn’t draw my Wimm-Bill-Dann from a blank sheet but I had to somehow change this lemur. The lemur was freckle-faced and at first my animal had freckles. But I had to get rid of them later: people didn’t see them as freckles but as a sign of illness.
Andrei Sechin not only drew but also thought up names for Wimm-Bill-Dann. He created the slogan ‘What you want’. He thought up the name J7 from the English word ‘juice’. The company had three different juices at the time, but had big plans to put out a whole line of seven. The brand Little House in the Country is fact a literary one: it came from Pushkin’s ‘Little House in Kolomna’ combined with Turgenev’s ‘Month in the Country’. Dear Mila, another brand, came from a school friend and colleague of Sechin.
- I always say that I don’t have any specialized higher education. After high school I entered the 1905 Moscow Art Academy – it was the only learning institution of its kind at the time where there was a department of graphic design and where they taught industrial design. In the other art academics they paid more attention to the art of high design – we were closer to life. While still in school I really liked boxes, wrappers, labels and typefaces. I wanted to do it all. I graduated from the academy in 1984.
- In 1989 the ‘First Soviet-American Design Summit’ was held in Moscow under the aegis of the Union of Designers of the USSR. Then it was difficult to imagine what an event this was: we had never seen American design; well besides something in some magazine a friend would let me have a look at. At the exhibition it was something totally new and I understood that I wanted to study this. Gathering my courage, I, in what I now realize was terrible English, asked an overseas guest (it was William J. O’Connor, the executive director of the company Source/Inc) his opinion about my work and as a result, I received an invitation for an internship in the States. But it was more than a year later that they were able to put together an official invitation. It was a student visa: having studied in Moscow for four years and having worked for six years, I went to America to study anew – true, not in a school but in the process of work. I was an intern at the firm Source/Inc which did design and marketing.
In August 1991, after study in America, Andrei Sechin returned to Moscow and there began his work at WBD.
- Having worked at Wimm-Bill-Dann for several years, by 1999 I felt I was too comfortable. What I did they accepted. And I understood that I was starting to lose my form from that. So I again made my way to Chicago, to the same firm. It wasn’t for the money. At that moment they paid me more in Russia than I was making going back to work at Source/Inc. I left in order to continue to study. Today I’m the design director of this firm, but I’m learning all the same. And I’d like to apply the knowledge picked up not only in America but in Russia.
Andrei Sechin’s work for WBD did not end with his return to Chicage. In 1996 he came up with, and in 2002 he renewed, the design for the trademark Chudo (Wonder) and in 2003 he did the design for the trademark Neo.
- It’s always a pleasure to work with my old clients, in particular Wimm-Bill-Dann.
The Secret of WBD Revealed
Alexandra Latsis, Editor of the Company Newspaper Wimm-Bill-Dann