The investment was officially initiated on 28 May. In the first phase of the project, the company will build a new slaughterhouse. Construction work on the facility is being carried out by local construction company OK Investment.
New jobs to be created
The facility, developed under a project worth about PLN150 million (€35m), is expected to be opened in early 2019. Under the plan, the investment will create up to 300 new jobs in Golin, the municipal authorities said in a statement.
Last October, the municipal authorities signed a deal with Polżywność under which the investor bought a land plot of close to 80,000sq m in Golin. The municipality is located about 380km west of the country’s capital Warsaw.
“We have put a lot of energy and effort to make this land an attractive location: we fitted this land with the necessary infrastructure; we fought with other cities to secure this investor; and we managed to win this fight,” said Adam Pawlicki, Mayor of Jarocin, in a statement.
Polżywność paid close to PLN2.8m (€650,000) for the land plot.
Owing to the investment’s location in the Jarocin subzone of the Wałbrzych Invest-Park special economic zone, the company will benefit from preferential tax treatment for its project.
Poultry meat consumption, exports on the rise
It is noteworthy that the investment in Golin comes as Poland’s poultry meat producers are expanding their foothold in a number of foreign markets. Last year, Poland’s poultry meat industry players exported a total of 1.4 million tonnes (t) in carcase weight equivalent, an increase of 10% compared with a year earlier. This translated into aggregate export revenues of €2.2bn, up 7% year-on-year, as indicated by figures from the state-run National Support Centre for Agriculture (KOWR).
Among the EU’s member states, some of the main export destinations for Poland’s poultry meat industry include Germany and the UK. Outside the EU, local players export to Ukraine, the Middle East and Hong Kong, among others, according to data from local industry association the National Poultry Council – Chamber of Commerce (KRD-IG).
At the same time, Polish consumers are increasingly interested in poultry meat. Last year, the country’s average annual consumption of poultry meat grew to a record 30.5kg per capita, said the Warsaw-based Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics (IERiGZ). While pork meat remains Poland’s most popular type of meat, with an average consumption of about 40.5 kg, the Institute expects its sales to stagnate in the coming years.
Set up in March 2016 and headquartered in Warsaw, Polżywność has meat processing and wholesale meat distribution as its registered activities, among others, according to the company’s filing to the National Court Register (KRS).