“There are still wolves or bears here,” said Ioan Vlasa, the director of Romania’s FAER microcredit organisation. Mr Vlasa, cameraman Roland Kremer and I were driving through the virginal, snowy hills of Transylvania in one of the organisation’s Dacias. The journey took us through gypsy settlements and past horse-drawn wagons carrying timber from the local forests.

From Mr Vlasa’s head office in the town of Reghin we travelled to Sovata, a village in the countryside. A major undertaking, and not just because of the snow. Mr Vlasa was also despondent about the general state of the roads: “I’d hoped for a better infrastructure after Romania joined the European Union, but they haven’t even started building motorways yet.”

Extortionate interest
Despite the roads, we arrived at Larix quicker than expected at Larix, the company to be profiled in our video report. It looked big, clean and modern. Larix dries, grinds up and blends a variety of herbal teas. Ioan Fazakas and Andrei Munteanu started the business in 1992.

Mr Munteanu, an enthusiastic man in his 40s, speaks good English. He told us that Larix received an injection of capital from FAER at the end of the 1990s. An ordinary loan was out of the question because Romanian banks were charging extortionate rates of interest at the time. “The microcredit loan was paid back in full a long time ago,” he explained.

Drying loft
Romanian television has already shown interest in the company but we were the first foreign camera team to film there. We were taken on a tour through enormous storage buildings, past a brand-new grinding machine and into a picturesque drying loft.

We filmed employees sorting out the various types of herbs – about 150 in total. Larix employs around 70 people. They looked slightly surprised when we started shooting, but soon settled and just carried on with their work.

Aromatic
It’s a shame our video camera couldn’t record smells, because the place was a feast of aromas, including artichoke, aniseed, blackberry, strawberry, myrtle, etc. More or less all the ingredients are grown locally. We had to wear regulation overalls and hairnets while filming in the area where the herbs are sorted.

Towards the end of our visit, Mr Munteanu took us to a nearby house where it all started. When they began, he and Mr Fazakas set to work in an extension, packaging locally grown herbs and herbal tea. At first, their profits were minimal, but Larix has since grown into a major company exporting across the world.

The Netherlands
Larix welcomed the FAER loan at the time, but the company’s days of reliance on microcredit are now long gone. Major players such as Germany’s Biohorma (Dr Vogel) and Dutch company Nagel and Waleda now do business with Larix.

One-third of the company’s shares are now in Dutch hands. Mr Munteanu laughs when I ask him whether he’s ever visited the Netherlands. He tells me he’s been to loads of places here, even Groningen.