Located at the company's cereals Myronivsky processing plant in the Kyiv region, the $12 million (€10m) plant first went into production in March and will soon reach its full crushing capacity of 620 tons of sunflower and rape seeds a day. In conjunction with this the company has also built a new 20,000 ton grain storage facility .
This is the company's second oilseed crushing venture. It previously had a small soy crushing facility, but this is the first time the company has moved into sunflower and rape seed oil processing.
"The main objective is for the company to reduce its costs," Artur Fudima, the company's vice-president told CEEFoodIndustry.com. "By crushing our own seed this will enable us to produce enough oil to supply all our poultry processing requirements. In doing this we are able to cut out other feed ingedient suppliers, which will enable us to make significant cost savings. Ultimately we envisage that this will give us an advantage in the market place for poultry processing."
Fudima added that the facility would more than meet its requirements for poultry feed and that a significant production surplus will allow it to start exporting to a leading grains and oilseed trading company in Germany.
In a further attempt to cut costs with the oilseed venture, the company has also confirmed that next year it plans to establish a new facility which will be used to burn sunflower husks, with the energy from this recycling process to be used to provide cheap thermal power.
At the end of last year CJSC Myronivsky Khliboprodukt secured a $30 million loan from the international Finance Corporation, in an effort to get the company's modernisation and expansion plans off the ground.
With the addition of this loan the company is spending a total of $119 million to expand its integrated poultry production facilities, including breeding and broiler farms, hatcheries, and processing plants, together with the oil seed processing venture.
Through its Nasha Riaba trademark, CJSC Myronivsky Khliboprodukt is estimated to currently command around 45 per cent of the market for processed chicken in the Ukraine. Last year it boosted production by 57 per cent, creating a total processing volume of 80,000 tons.