Company history
JOFRE’s history starts in July of 1998, when it was registered as the research and production company “Jofre Labortechnik”. The company was a small agglomeration of engineers who once worked at Brest Electromechanical Plant and Tsvetotron company, the main “electronic” enterprise in Brest.
At that time company owner Sergey Krasko made all main strategic decisions. The main vector of the company development and its future were associated with the European market.
Installation of an electromechanical information board. Sergey Krasko personally supervised installation works.
The year 2000 was a landmark year for the company. After a series of negotiations, a well-known german manufacturer of information boards for gasoline stations signed a contract with JOFRE.
The company had to use all its engineering potential, not just to demonstrate the technical level of the company, but also, show its creativity. The company’s first products laid the foundation for their future of innovation. First and foremost engineers were concerned about reliability, especially when outdoor devices needed to operate in harsh environments and operating year-round.
When a german client analyzed their internal statistical information, they found that the number of failures of electronic modules from JOFRE was much lower than that of the modules offered by former suppliers.
After several years, JOFRE engineers offered to sell LED display panels to customers, along with the usual electro-mechanical panels that decorated many filling stations in Germany and other EU countries. The engineers believed that LED devices had great prospects. JOFRE educated their partners about the advantages of LED devices, and their partners agreed to adopt the new illumination scheme. Having weighed the pros and cons, the german company changed marketing plans, focusing on LED display devices.
In 2003 Oleg Chebotarenko became the company’s CEO, while Sergey Krasko changed his focus to the long-term planning and strategic issues of the company development.
At the same time, the firm decided to relocate themselves within Brest, Belarus. Eager to remain within the borders of Brest free economic zone, JOFRE acquired new production spaces, allowing them to expand their global market further.
As a result, in 2003 JOFRE had a new production building with more space. Production areas since the company was founded have grown exactly 10 times and reached up to 800 square meters.
The territory and the facade of the main building when the reconstruction began
LED Panel Test Stand
At the beginning of the new century, JOFRE switched its production line from photo printing devices to information boards.
At the same time, JOFRE expanded their range of products due to a growing customer base. Among these new clients was a German company who required precision instruments for the analysis of biological fluids. JOFRE’s growing engineering force developed and manufactured these highly accurate tools.
Shortly after, JOFRE began development of controllers and other devices for a well-known German manufacturer. The controllers were used with equipment meant for the preparation, dosing and disposal of sanitary and disinfectant solutions.
Since 2003-2004 the company has been engaged in a new business sector: the illumination of show caves. The range of works expanded to landscape and architectural lighting. A completely new business activity was suggested by Sergei Krasko, and was associated with his passion for speleotourism.
Krasko visited the famous Spanish Galrerie De La Verna in 2001 and noticed how poorly the illumination system functioned, especially relative to its expense. The walls of the stone corridors were lined with hundreds of meters of power cables the width of a human arm. To make matters worse, the power supply used an entirely separate power line.
The company JOFRE designed its own solution that was revolutionary for the time. The team developed special fixtures based on LED technology: light and bright, yet not energy-intensive, with appropriate power and control systems. In 2005, these concepts were put into practice. Cave Lighting was created to oversee and control this endeavour.
About a year later, show cave equipment kits were sent from Belarus, and installation and tests were started in Germany and Slovenia. Today our lighting equipment successfully operates in more than fifty show caves.
At the same time, JOFRE successfully expanded its lighting undertaking to include architectural lighting with regards to building facades.
Бригада специалистов компании готовится к монтажу мобильного осветительного комплекса в одной из пещер в Германии.
In 2010, after long negotiations, JOFRE began production for Danish company Martin Professional, the world’s leading manufacturer of stage lighting systems. JOFRE fully met the high technical requirements of the Danish company, and for many years successfully developed and manufactured their LED lighting systems.