Dialect trick in Dubai

How a phone call in a hotel elevator in 2013 brought Rauch to Georgia.

It can be risky to make business calls in a packed elevator. It's not so risky, however, if the elevator is located in a hotel in Dubai and the conversation is conducted in the broadest Vorarlberg dialect.

So, Jürgen Rauch was all the more surprised when a man he didn't know approached him as he left the lift. Did Jürgen have anything to do with fruit juice? His name was Miho Svimonishvili, he came from Georgia but had studied in Switzerland and therefore understood a few scraps of the telephone conversation. He said he owned a mineral water factory back home, but also wanted to bottle fruit juices in the future, which is why he was here at the Gulf Food Fair 2013...

Jürgen Rauch invited the likeable Georgian to visit him at the Rauch booth in the afternoon. The man spent an hour there describing his plans, for which he was looking for a partner. He came from a respected Georgian family, had even been Georgian Minister of Agriculture shortly after the revolution, and with Swiss help had turned a decayed Russian mineral water spring into a flourishing company and the market leader in Georgia. Jürgen Rauch: "Miho's story and his energy inspired me. So I promised him, if you do this, we're in.

One year later, again at Gulf Food, and Miho was suddenly standing at the Rauch booth again. He wondered if the offer was still valid. He said he was already working on it, but needed some more time for the financing. Jürgen Rauch: "I was happy to see him and assured him that our word was still good."

A good two years later the project was ready for launch. As promised, experts from Rauch supported Miho in the technical implementation and market launch. Since 2017, Happy Day, Bravo and company have been coming off the conveyor belt under licence at Mihos' state-of-the-art fruit juice factory in Georgia. As they say so nicely in the Vorarlberg dialect: "Guat gloffa"! (A job well done!)