Through Inalca Eurasia Holdings, in which the Knightsbridge Group also participates, the Cremonini group today opened the first beef slaughtering plant in the Russian Federation’s Orenburg in the Southern Urals. The plant has an annual capacity for slaughtering 130,000 head, and required a 40-million-EUR investment. It will have a pivotal role in enhancing and promoting beef production in Orenburg, a city at the Russian border with Kazakhstan, and in the surrounding regions where livestock are raised. The meat produced will be marketed in part through Russian distribution channels (catering and retail), while part is earmarked for the plant built by Cremonini in Moscow in 2010. Over the coming months, two feeding lots will be opened, one in Orenburg and one in the adjoining region of Tatarstan, with a view to increasing the production of both milk-producing and meat-producing cattle. The group had 2013 earnings of over 250 million EUR, with an EBITDA of approximately 25 million EUR (+25% over 2012). While Russia is one of the most important meat producers in the world today, one of the Russian government’s strategic objectives is to boost domestic production in order to meet a steadily growing per capita demand and to increase its self-sufficiency to 85% in the next ten years.
(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor)
