Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

Bulgarian Atanas Vulev reaches finals of American Made Awards

The Trimona Yogurt produced in New York by Bulgarian Atanas Vulev has reached the finals of the prestigious "American Made” contest. It is organized by popular TV presenter and businesswoman Martha Stewart, who supports innovation. The contest is very well known in the USA as one that is encouraging local production. Vulev produces organic yogurt using Lactobacillus bulgaricus ferment. The milk is supplied by farmers in the vicinity of New York and no preservatives or thickeners are used. The yogurt produced by Atanas Vulev is named after his home town of Plovdiv that had the name of Trimontium in ancient past. The product became winner in the "Food, agriculture and sustainability" category. Online voting ends on October 13th, 2014 and winners will become known on the next day. They will receive a cash prize and will present their products to investors from the USA. You can vote for Atanas Vulev on the website www.marthastewart.com .  
 
Atanas Vulev told us more about this prestigious contest:

Снимка"I start with the essentials. We need as many votes as possible. If 500 people vote for Trimona per day we could win. I say we, because yogurt is something truly Bulgarian and I'm just a promoter of this original Bulgarian product. The time has come to present it in America. The competition involved more than 500 candidates in different categories, but the winner will be only one, selected through online voting. The nine who follow the winner will be selected by the judges. We are fighting for the first place and must win it," Atanas Vulev says, full of optimism.  

 
The Bulgarian has a curious story to tell. When he was a young agronomist he went to the U.S. and decided to try his luck there with music and theater, which was his dream. This was some 24 years ago.

"I went to the U.S. with the guitar and two jars of yogurt without having the idea that the yogurt will actually become my profession one day. I decided I had to continue the tradition of home-made ​​yogurt. Thousands of Bulgarians across the world do this. So I was producing home-made yogurt for 18 years and this activity gradually turned into a business. The guitar now stands in its case. Me and a friend of mine used to perform in a bar, which was interesting. But when you have a band, you need magic to keep you together. Music remained a hobby for me."

Atanas Vulev is an agronomist who graduated from the Institute of Agriculture in Plovdiv with a degree in tropical and subtropical agriculture. This has little to do with yogurt production, but still provided him with solid training. "I studied chemistry, microbiology, plant physiology, and used this knowledge to start my business,” he says.

"I also used to produce raw-fermented sausages according to Bulgarian recipes," Vulev goes on to say. This was an interesting period of my life because I wanted to produce something that was missing in America. Many of the Bulgarian emigrants feel nostalgia for the homeland and always speak about the delicious Bulgarian cuisine. Cooking has always been my hobby and gradually turned into my business. Bulgarians have incredibly delicious food, but Americans do not know about it. Everyone wants to share their culture in this world of immigrants here. In this country people are open to all kinds of innovations. Here various foods from all over the world have become popular. I do not see why Bulgarian sausages, yogurt, cheese, etc. shouldn’t become popular and liked. This has already started happening and the process will not stop."


English: Alexander Markov


More from category

Lazo Nestori

Lazo Nestori from Albania: Being Bulgarian is a source of pride and a great name!

Only a few kilometers west of the border between Greece and Albania and some 40 kilometers from the regional center Korçë is the Albanian town of Bilishta (Bilisht in Albanian). A member of the urban intelligentsia there is Lazo Nestori - a..

published on 10/21/24 3:45 PM
 Radoslava Nedyalkova

Radoslava Nedyalkova: Folklore groups are at the heart of Bulgarian communities around the world

"You realize what your homeland is when you lose it. When you're at home, you turn on the radio, hear folk music, speak Bulgarian, and go to the theater where you also hear Bulgarian speech. It is only when you lose all that that you realize how much..

published on 10/21/24 2:56 PM
Marcelo Tarapow

Rear Admiral Marcelo Tarapow: Bulgaria and Argentina develop fruitful joint activities in Antarctica

The first Bulgarian research expedition to Antarctica took place in the spring of 1988, marking the beginning of a series of scientific studies by local researchers on the icy continent. ''These are the most extreme conditions in which a person can be..

published on 10/21/24 11:14 AM