The Story of

BRĂDET

From the foothills of the Făgăraș Mountains, since 2005

A Romanian

company

Brădet is a Romanian company specialising in natural dairy products, based at the foot of the Făgăraș Mountains in Argeș County. We are one of the leading dairy brands in the region, entirely Romanian-owned — a distinction we carry with pride.

Our products are found today on the shelves of the main retail chains in Romania and are distributed in four European countries: Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany. Our portfolio covers the full range of everyday dairy — from matured cheeses to yoghurt, sour cream, butter and fresh milk — all made exclusively from Romanian milk collected from partner farms.

The company's flagship product is Brădet Cheese, a recipe with historical roots linked to the monks of Brădet Hermitage and the holder of an official traditional-product certificate. Its distinctive round shape and unmistakable taste have made the name known throughout the country.

Behind the Brădet brand stands the Badea family, which has run the company since 2001. Under their stewardship the dairy was rebuilt from the ground up and continuously modernised through investments of more than 3.5 million euros, becoming a landmark for consumers looking for authentic Romanian dairy made without compromise.

Our work rests on one principle we do not negotiate: keeping the traditional recipes, whatever technology does next. We constantly modernise everything to do with hygiene, food safety and efficiency — but we never touch the recipes that made our products' name.

From the foothills of the Făgăraș Mountains, since 2005

The place of origin

Brădet, Argeș

Our company's name comes straight from the place it calls home: the village of Brădet, in the commune of Brăduleț, Argeș County, at the foot of the Făgăraș Mountains — a village with a special standing in the history of Romanian dairy.

Here, at Brădet Hermitage, the monks made a cheese of distinctive round shape, recognisable by both its look and its unmistakable taste. The recipe, handed down from one generation to the next, has survived time — the makers changed, the product did not. Today Brădet Cheese works much like the European geographical-identity names: a product bound inseparably to the place where it was created.

Local oral tradition also keeps a story which, although never officially recorded, is told with pride by the people here: that General Charles de Gaulle, on his visit to Romania, particularly admired the cheese made in this place.

Today our dairy stands exactly on the hearth of that tradition. We take up an inheritance and carry it forward — with the respect it deserves, and with the means of a modern company.

From the foothills of the Făgăraș Mountains, since 2005

Romanian

enterprise

Brădet in its present form is the result of the Badea family's decision, in 2001, to invest in what looked like a difficult project: rebuilding a dairy in a rural area. In hindsight, the decision proved a visionary one.

“I grew up in this unique natural landscape, I had the quiet of these places to myself, and I felt obliged to do something for the region that made me the person I am.”

Over the twenty-odd years that followed, the Badea family invested steadily in the dairy — financially, and through direct involvement in management and strategy. The company came through hard moments, among them a devastating fire in 2008 that destroyed the production unit completely, and kept growing to become one of the most important entirely Romanian-owned dairy producers in the region.

Throughout that growth the vision stayed consistent: authentic Romanian dairy, made from Romanian milk, to recipes that keep their identity. We made no compromises on quality in order to grow faster. We took on no foreign investors who might have diluted the brand's identity. And we changed no principles along the way.

Today Brădet is still run by the founding family, alongside a team of Romanian professionals who share the same vision. For us, the fact that every package carries the name of the village we come from is both a source of pride and a responsibility we accept: every product that leaves the gate carries the name of a place and the name of a family alike.

From the foothills of the Făgăraș Mountains, since 2005

Our journey

The milestones that shaped the Brădet story

Every story has dates that matter. For Brădet, these are the years that turned an idea into a dairy, and the dairy into a name people know.

Half a century ago

The old milk-processing plant at Brădet is founded, keeping the original cheese recipe. To this day that cheese holds the traditional-product certificate.

1976

2001

The Badea family buys the site of the dairy. The decision comes not from business calculation but from an attachment to these places.

2003–2005

A complete rebuild, from the foundations up. Two years of work in which the dairy is redesigned to combine modern hygiene and safety conditions with traditional processing methods.

2003

2005

June 2005

The first products of the new Brădet dairy appear. Before long they are among the most admired dairy products in the region.

2008

A devastating fire destroys the dairy and the finished-goods warehouses. For any other company it would have been the moment the story ended. For us it was only a hard chapter.

2008

2009

After four months of uninterrupted work, the dairy is rebuilt and production resumes.

2010 and onwards

Brădet runs a large investment project with European funding. More than 3.5 million euros go into modern technology — always on one condition: no new process may alter the traditional taste of the products.

2010

Today

Brădet dairy reaches Romanian tables across the whole country, and those of Romanians abroad. Our products are found in Italy, England, Spain, Germany, Cyprus and Belgium — because homesickness tastes the same everywhere.