The foundations of company KIRCEK d.o.o. were layed in the year 1950., when it`s founder Ivan Gotić has bought a sawmill and started with a handicraft-type manufacturing. At the very beginning, besides the saw-mill and couple of hand-saws, there hasn`t been any other equipment, and the only working people were one employee and the owner. Production program was based on the needs of the local people, and there was no intention in entering a bigger market. The main products were different kinds of oak and beech roof beams, and sawn-timber for the local carpenters. Production was working in one shift, and since the sawmill was placed under the roof without walls, weather has also had a great influence on the production.

In nineteen sixties KIRCEK starts cooperating with new-established state companies, and, because of that, there was a need for getting bigger production capacity, new and faster machines and additional employees. The production space has been made more pleasant to work in, and some additional machines were added to the production. But most of the work was still based on the hard labour out in the open space.

During the seventies there was no bigger investments. Though the production program stays the same, the production is making more and more sawn-timber for bigger Croatian industries, and less for the local carpenters. The whole production is mainly based on the oak processing, and all the other wood species are being processed randomly, and in small volumes only.

The most important thing that happened in eighties was getting in touch with the export-companies, and start selling our products in the European market. Oak makes over the 70% of the export volumes. To meet the quality and lead terms determined by the customers, in 1987. were bought a new and more efficient sawmill, and couple of tool-grinding machines.

The multi blade saw and optimization saw for the production of strips (staves/elements) were also bought at the end of the eighties, so after that KIRCEK was getting more focused on making and selling the strips, and less on selling the sawn-timber. Main products in this period have became oak strips (80%) and ash strips (20%), and mostly they were sold on the European market.

At the middle of 1991. KIRCEK craft turns into company KIRCEK d.o.o. Because of the lack of the production space at the existing location and the need to expand, in 1995. was bought a new building-site on a completely new location. On this new site were built 2 new production buildings with total space of 576 m2, and 3 drying-kilns with total capacity of 150 m3. The existing strips-making machines were moved to one new building, and in the second building were installed new machines for the production of edge-glued and finger-jointed solid wood panels. The sawmill remained at the old location, and because of the business idea to move, step by step, to the higher level of the wood processing, the sawmill was working less and less, until it was completely closed down in 1999.

In the short period after the 1995. some smaller volumes of the strips are also being sold, but our main products have become the edge-glued and finger-jointed solid wood panels. At the late nineties, our panel production, as the panel production grows, keeps needing more and more raw material (sawn-timber and strips), so besides getting this material from our own production, KIRCEK has started buying additional volumes of the raw material in Croatian market.

Additional warehouse building of 200 m2 and fourth drying chamber of 50 m3 drying capacity were built in the 2001. In the year 2002. the fifth drying chamber with capacity of additional 50 m3 was built, and the year after a new warehouse building with 770 m2. In the year 2006. 4 new drying chambers have been added, so the total drying capacity today is 450 m3.

Since 1995. until today, every year a big percentage of the company's turnover has been reinvested into the new machines, so the oldest machine at the moment is 7 years old. This trend of reinvesting the money into the new, and better machines, we hope to keep in the future also, because we are aware that in today's demanding market, we can survive with the most sophisticated and most efficient machines only. Production program is still focused on the oak processing, so the production of oak panels makes over 80% of the total production, walnut panels 10%, cherry panels 5%, ash panels 3-4% and maple panels 2-3%. Yearly production makes cca. 1500 m3 of the panels, which are mostly being sold to the customers all over the Europe (over 99%), and unfortunately only a very small volume is being sold to Croatian customers. Raw material is manly sourced in the Croatian market, but every year more and more material is also imported from all over the Europe .

There are 40-50 employees at the moment working in KIRCEK d.o.o., and most of them have a long experience of working in KIRCEK. The company KIRCEK has a long-time experience of solid wood processing, and specially of solid oak processing, since the oak is being processed since the KIRCEK`s very beginning.