Cherkizovo opens Russia’s largest hatchery

Cherkizovo has opened a modern high technology complex, built as part of the company’s capacity increase project, at the Penza poultry cluster. The hatchery enables 105 million eggs to be incubated per year.

Such high production levels are achieved by combining state-of-the-art equipment with the latest technological processes and leading research and development in poultry production.

The total investment in constructing the hatchery is approximately US $19 million (600 million roubles). The Penza capacity increase project also includes building a modern slaughtering facility with an hourly capacity of up to 8,000 heads in addition to the existing slaughtering facility which has an hourly capacity of 6,000 heads.

A fodder factory has also been constructed, with an annual storage capacity of 300,000 tonnes. These facilities are expected to be launched by the end of 2011.

In addition, new bird houses at the existing sites of the Vasilievskaya factory will also be constructed. In 2010, the Penza poultry cluster had a capacity of approximately 61,500 tonnes of live weight poultry meat; the completion of this project will see that rise to 140,000 tonnes in 2013.

Sergey Mikhailov, CEO of Cherkizovo Group, said: “A key component for the successful execution of our business strategy is the increase of our productive capacity. Today we are therefore proud to announce the launch of one of the largest hatcheries not only in Russia, but also in Europe. By constructing facilities of this size we are able to benefit from scale economies, delivering efficiency benefits to our customers. At the same time, these investments position the business well for growth over the long term. We are pleased to be taking an active leadership role in the evolution of Russia’s agribusiness sector, and believe that we are well positioned for continued successful execution against our strategy.”