Volshebnyi Kray manager Oleg Kaushan said that he considers Israeli market as highly promising.
"Now, on the first stage, we negotiate with a few Israeli companies the conditions for supplying unrefined sunflower seed oil ", he said. The product will be exported for further processing by local fat-and-oil companies.
According to Kaushan, the company have already reached an agreement with the management of the Israeli firm Miloumor Edible Oil Industry.
The award of a kosher certificate follows the visited this spring by a delegation from the Israeli main rabbi's office. The delegation found that the sunflower seed oil process to be in full accordance with the international quality standards.
In addition, they said that the usage of modern technologies allows performing thorough control during the entire manufacturing process.
The Russian vegetable oil market is has become a huge export industry. APK-Inform said that Russia exported 26,500 tons of sunflower seed oil last April, with an increase of 8.6 per cent compared to March.
In comparison with April 2003/04, exports increased 1.7 times. The main export direction were Egypt (about 9 thousand tons), Italy (7,8 thousand tons), Kazakhstan (2,5 thousand tons) and Syria (2,3 thousand tons).
The total Russian export volume of sunflower seed oil in the 2004/05 season could reach about 200 thousand tons. Last season, Russia exported 162,2 thousand tons of sunflower seed oil.
Volshebnyi Kray is an oil-processing factory from Rostov. It began its work last year and it plans to acquire 25 per cent of the Russian market in three years. Aston Group, Volshebnyi Kray's parent company, is based in Hamburg and specialises in brokerage and freight operations.
After it purchased the controlling shares package of the Rostov Moryak shipyard and 90 per cent of the shares of Miller oil processing factory, it built the Volshebnyi Kray factory. In the segment of raw sunflower seed oil, Aston controls about 56 per cent of Russian exports.