Meet Srdjan Solaja – food engineer with extra everything

Our heroes. That is what we call our col­leagues, who work with research and devel­op­ment of our sweet­ened fibres. It is their knowl­edge, expe­ri­ence and dili­gent work that makes Bayn the lead­ing sup­pli­er of sweet­ened fibres. And these peo­ple are the ones that help you choose the right sweet­ened fibres, and fine-tune the com­po­si­tion for your appli­ca­tion, or cre­ate your own solu­tion for sug­ar reduc­tion. Although they are heroes, they are rarely seen and heard. We should rem­e­dy that. In a series of arti­cles, you get to meet our heroes.

‘Call Srdjan’

Srdjan Solaja is a name that is con­stant­ly buzzing in Bayn. If we need a speak­ing part­ner regard­ing devel­op­ment, qual­i­ty or logis­tics, yes, then we con­sult Srdjan.

Srdjan Solaja was recruit­ed to Bayn Solutions in 2015. His broad back­ground in the food indus­try made him an obvi­ous choice. Then there was some­thing about the chem­istry too – the per­son­al, that is. It said ‘click’ between Srdjan and Bayn’s research and devel­op­ment team, and the rest is, as it’s called history.

But this is a dis­tance rela­tion­ship. Srdjan lives and works in Novi Sad in Serbia. The dis­tance to the head office in Stockholm is 1,570 km. And the dis­tance to our inno­va­tion cen­tre in Gävle adds anoth­er 170 km.

Srdjan reg­u­lar­ly trav­els to Sweden, but dai­ly con­tacts are made by tele­phone. At least a dozen times a day.

Meet Srdjan Solaja – one of Bayn’s heroes.

What background do you have?

I am a food engi­neer. I stud­ied at the fac­ul­ty of tech­nol­o­gy at Novi Sad University in Serbia a mas­ter of sci­ence with major in food preser­va­tion – every­thing from veg­etable oils and fats, meats and dairy prod­ucts to fruits and vegetables.

Why did you choose the academic path?

I’ve always been inter­est­ed in nat­ur­al science.

My main inter­est was chem­istry, but find­ing a job as a chemist was hard. The only alter­na­tive would have been to work as a chem­istry teacher. But I had a hard time see­ing myself in that role. So that’s why I chose food sci­ence – an area where things are hap­pen­ing all the time.

In the food area, there is a con­stant pur­suit of learn­ing new things and devel­op­ing food tech­nol­o­gy. And you have to work method­i­cal­ly, ana­lyt­i­cal­ly and also be creative.

After study­ing, I worked at a bis­cuit fac­to­ry for a few years before I start­ed work­ing with sales.

How did you get in touch with Bayn?

I worked with raw mate­ri­als and spe­cial ingre­di­ents at Barentz, a major inter­na­tion­al dis­trib­u­tor of ingre­di­ents, when Lucy Dahlgren and Suzanne Preddie-Atterby from Bayn came on a cus­tomer vis­it. I was the one who wel­comed them and showed them around. We liked each other.

How?

Both of them had a nice ener­gy, worked with ste­vi­ol gly­co­sides and want­ed to expand their busi­ness. And I think they noticed that I was pas­sion­ate about the food indus­try; the more I worked with ingre­di­ents, the more inter­est­ed I became. I also enjoy mak­ing peo­ple in the food indus­try thrilled about new ingre­di­ents and to inspire them to test new things. At that time, I was very inter­est­ed in hydro­col­loids, which are used in foods, because they real­ly do miracles.

I was also quite suc­cess­ful as a sales­man and could see myself in such a position.

What happened then?

When Lucy heard that I had left Barentz, she con­tact­ed me and offered me a job. I had the basic knowl­edge about ste­vi­ol gly­co­sides, did my own research and accept­ed the offer to work for Bayn.

What role did you initially play?

I start­ed as a cus­tomer man­ag­er and worked a lot with sales. Afterwards, I got more roles. Before Bayn, I had many dif­fer­ent func­tions. In short, I had the indus­tri­al knowl­edge com­bined with com­mer­cial expe­ri­ence. I under­stand both sales­peo­ple and tech­ni­cal peo­ple. All of this has shaped my role at Bayn.

At Bayn, you are known as the ‘man with many hats’. How is it that?

I am respon­si­ble for sales and logis­tics, as well as qual­i­ty management.

With the sales hat on, I work with dis­trib­u­tors and pro­vide tech­ni­cal sup­port for the prod­ucts we sell.

In the role of qual­i­ty man­ag­er, I make sure that all of the company’s prod­ucts and ser­vices meet qual­i­ty stan­dards before they enter the mar­ket. It also includes under­stand­ing cus­tomers’ expec­ta­tions and needs, describ­ing qual­i­ty stan­dards and devel­op­ing process­es for qual­i­ty control.

Is it possible to describe your daily work?

It’s quite com­plex. I start the day with the sales process, fol­low up on ongo­ing projects, send offers and close agree­ments. There are always new leads and inquiries that I take care of.

Quality con­trol is also part of my dai­ly activ­i­ties, as well as doc­u­men­ta­tion on sales and food safe­ty. This is why I have con­tact with my col­leagues in Sweden up to a dozen times a day.

We have out­sourced the pro­duc­tion of Eureba, and one of the most impor­tant tasks I han­dle is to orga­nize the logis­tics, ensure that the pro­duc­tion is fol­low­ing food safe­ty stan­dards, and to make sure every­thing is done accord­ing to plan, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with our partners.

How is your view of the food industry today?

There is a con­stant need to improve the foods we eat and to suc­ceed, we need knowl­edge of food sci­ence. We see that peo­ple are becom­ing more sen­si­tive to cer­tain ingre­di­ents and foods. People are also more aware of what they eat and drink. The food indus­try has always fol­lowed con­sumer demands, and right now, every­thing points to the fact that con­sumers want to reduce their intake of sug­ar. That’s the right way to go. And that’s the way Bayn is taking.