As part of its planned investment, the firm is to launch construction works on its new facility in Koluszki, in Poland’s central Łódzkie region, in the next few months.
“The new facility in Koluszki, where we will carry out our slaughtering, poultry meat cutting and processing activities, will be our largest investment in the next few years. We plan to start construction of the facility in mid-2016,” Kowalewski told local news site Portalspozywczy.pl.
New investment
In addition to the investment in Koluszki, SuperDrob is aiming to finance a number of expansion projects at its other plants. These will allow the company to raise the aggregate output capacity of its facilities in Poland by about 50% by the end of this year.
In 2015, the meat processor invested about PLN80m (€18m) to expand and modernise its facilities. This year, SuperDrob’s total investments are expected to reach at least PLN200m (€45m), according to the firm.
“These investments will be carried out in 2016 and 2017,” Kowalewski said.
Company representatives have also said that SuperDrob is aiming to intensify its investments in next few years.
The plant in Koluszki is to be located in a special economic zone, which will enable the meat processor to gain preferential tax treatment for its manufacturing project. Under the plan, the special economic zones are set to remain operational in Poland until the end of 2026.
Koluszki is located less than 110km from the country’s capital Warsaw.
Poultry consumption on the rise
The latest outlay by SuperDrob comes at a time when the Polish poultry meat industry is experiencing a period of intensified investment. The country’s annual consumption of poultry meat was estimated at about 28kg per capita in 2015, according to data released from the state-run Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics (IERiGZ). This represented an increase of close to 2% compared with a year earlier. Poultry meat remains less popular in the Polish market than pork, with the country’s average consumption set at some 38.5kg per capita. This said, poultry meat’s share of the Polish meat consumption is continuing to expand.
Set up in 1993 and headquartered in Karczew, in Poland’s central region, SuperDrob operates three facilities in the Polish market. The firm said its product range comprised fillets, strips, rolls, hams, sausages and other processed poultry meat products. In addition to the domestic market, the company exports its products to a number of foreign markets, including the UK and Ireland, according to data from SuperDrob.
In 2011, SuperDrob said it was one of the few Polish poultry meat processors which was allowed to launch exports to China. The firm has a workforce of around 2,000 employees.