"I completely gave up smoking chickens." Mogilev Engineer Talks About the Specifics of Preparing Fish and Meat Delicacies
Mogilev resident Siarhei Dundzin purchased professional equipment for smoking fish and meat in 2025. He is now experimenting with various recipes for smoked products and looking for markets for his homemade delicacies, writes Magilev.by.
Siarhei Dundzin is originally from the urban settlement of Svislach, Pukhovichi district. He currently lives in Mogilev. By profession, he is an engineer-designer of low-current systems. Married, father of two children. But he finds time for his favorite hobby — he has loved cooking since childhood. His teacher was his mother — Natallia Mikalajeuna.
"I liked to help her more," Siarhei recalls. "It was simply interesting for me, especially during holidays, to participate in the process of choosing dishes, cooking, and I liked setting the table. Mom trusted me to chop vegetables, prepare meat. I was proud of myself when it turned out delicious and beautiful. I helped mom when she was canning salads and compotes. I spent my holidays with my grandmother and grandfather in the village, and there were homemade sausages and cutlets, in the preparation of which I also participated."
He helped his father sort out the fish catch; together they salted and fried it. After university, Siarhei began experimenting with smoking fish.
"At first, it was a homemade construction: a net, a basin where I poured wood chips, on top — fish in foil. And on a smoldering brazier with coals," Siarhei explains.
The fish was a hit with relatives and friends. One day, a friend asked him to smoke a large quantity of lard. Siarhei used a relative's mini-smoker — and fulfilled the order. It was then that he wondered if he could earn money by preparing smoked meat and fish delicacies?
He agonized over the question he had set for himself for several weeks. Then he took a sheet of paper, a pen — and drew up a list of what he needed for his future business. Firstly, good professional equipment that allows maintaining the necessary parameters for home smoking. The desired option cost him almost 1000 c.u. (conventional units). Secondly, auxiliary equipment, which includes a refrigerator, knives, special dishes, a household vacuum sealer. Thirdly, raw materials, spices, salt, wood chips.
For the first few months, he experimented with various recipes for smoked ducks, chickens, pork, river, and sea fish. He treated his relatives, close friends, and acquaintances to them. In parallel, he studied the offers from raw material suppliers.
"As a result, I completely gave up smoking chickens — due to the impossibility of competing with large manufacturers. That is, because of small batches, the cost price of one smoked chicken for me is almost twice as high as in retail chains. Who would buy it?" Siarhei explains. "Yes, it's homemade — without preservatives and additives, but it is precisely the price that determines the buyer's interest."
He smokes ducks for holidays — at this time, demand for this assortment noticeably increases. He sources poultry from a local farmer who feeds them with ecological and natural feeds.
He purchases pork for meat delicacies, including ribs, neck, loin, shoulder, ham, lard, and brisket, from the "Zara" and "Vostok" agro-industrial complexes. Their price-to-quality ratio satisfies him, resulting in a competitively priced product. The raw material base for smoked fish comes from fishermen with their catches and fish farms.
"With them, you can agree on the price, and their volumes are usually small. The same cannot be said for sea fish. It's not cheap, and the minimum batch from suppliers is 10 kg. A separate refrigerator is needed to store it, as such a quantity, for example, of smoked salmon, cannot be sold quickly," Siarhei explains the details of his business. "Besides, it's important to offer the buyer a choice — pink salmon, sockeye, chum, coho. And that again means money."
Siarhei notes that smoking, at first glance, seems to be a rather simple and well-understood craft. In reality, the process is labor-intensive, requiring knowledge and experience, as everything is important in this business — from the quality of raw materials to strict adherence to the technological process. Even salt has specific requirements.
"You can use regular salt," Siarhei explains. "But it is nitrite salt that gives the meat an appetizing pink color. By preserving it during heat treatment, it improves the product's taste and extends its shelf life. Therefore, it is more expensive than regular table salt. It can be bought either on marketplaces or in large batches, but in this case, the question immediately arises: where to store such volumes?"
These specifics of raw material procurement, he notes, as well as the weight loss of the finished product (for example, 9 kg of frozen fish yields only 4 kg of smoked coho salmon) significantly impact the pricing of the finished delicacies.
"I've only been selling my smoked products since the end of last year — after registering in the app for paying professional income tax," Siarhei explains. "For now, there's no net profit; I'm recovering the funds spent on purchasing equipment and consumables."
"Currently, the main goal is to build a client base. Then the product line can be expanded. Ideas are already there — hunters offer to smoke wild game."
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