With a planned annual capacity of four billion packages, the new facility accommodates “state-of-the-art production facilities and a warehouse designed to run “in an environmentally-friendly manner”. Investment in the plant exceeds €100m, Tetra Pak’s largest spend in Russia to date.
Around 75% of the output of the factory, which Tetra Pak says will employ “world-class manufacturing processes”, will be aseptic packaging to meet growing Russian demand for long-life products. The Russian UHT milk market is “particularly buoyant” and grew by 16% in 2006 – twice as fast as the total market for packaged milk.
Tetra Pak, which expects this trend to continue, has successfully operated in the Russian market for almost half a century. Headquartered in Moscow, it has regional offices in St Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar and Yekaterinburg and employs over 700 staff. Its total sales volumes in Russia 2006 exceeded 6.1bn packs.
Igor Akimov, president of Tetra Pak Russia, says: “The decision to invest in new production facilities is based on the dynamic growth of the Russian juices and nectars soft drinks market.”
