German meat company, Tönnies, is to invest RUB 8 bln (€200 million) in the construction of a pork processing plant in the Khokholsky district of Russia’s Voronezh region, Michael Fritzsch, head of Tönnies Russian division, announced at the exhibition «Green Week — 2013» in Berlin.
According to Fritzsch, the construction of the plant is scheduled to begin in 2013. The plant will consist of five modules. The first is expected to be launched before the end of 2014 with a capacity to process 300 pigs per hour (or 5000 pigs per day if facility operates on a two shift basis). The total amount of investment in the first module is estimated at €45 mln.
The plant will be one of the most modern meat processing plants in Europe, Fritzsch added, and it will produce chilled packaged pork, demand for which is growing in Russia in recent years.
To ensure the new plant will have sufficient raw materials the company has established a complex of pork farms in the two regions of Voronezh and Belgorod. Meaning that, in Belgorod the company already owns five pig farms of 2.5 thousand sows. In the development of production in this area the company has already invested about €200 mln and in 2013 Tonnies plans to build three more farms will the additional investments.
«All in all, we plan to increase the number of pig farms in the Belgorod region to nine. And if we reach this level, we will be able to produce up to 650,000 pigs and 65,000 tonnes of pork a year,» — Fritzsch said.
In addition, Tonnies plans to create a breeding and genetic center and to construct a feed mill in the Voronezh region to ensure the pig farms have a sufficient feed supply.