Igor Eliseenko: We hoped that the construction of the EkoNiva plant would save the situation in Siberia

Igor Eliseenko said that only 43% of the milk produced is processed in the region, the rest is sent for processing to Altai, Kemerovo and Omsk regions.

‘We know that Altai cheeses, in fact, are almost not Altai at all, they are made mainly from our Novosibirsk milk,’ said the head of MolSib, adding that the shortage of processing capacities in Novosibirsk region is caused not by the lack of factories, but by the question of how and to whom processors could sell their products.

‘Most of the factories are obsolete. There are simply no such plants that would correspond to modern trends. In addition, for the last five years I have not seen anyone seriously invest in the production of dairy products,’ commented Igor Eliseenko.

According to the speaker, many hoped that the construction of the EkoNiva plant would save the situation in the region, but at the moment the project is frozen.

‘In my opinion it would be a plant with a huge export potential, because they wanted to use 800 tons of milk only for cheese production, the plant would be unique. Moreover, it would be unique, in particular from the point of view of logistics: all farms are located nearby, the haul distance is a maximum of 100 km — this would be a strong competitive advantage. They approached the project competently, but, in my opinion, they were ruined by the fact that they then added 250 tons of fermented dairy products to the production range and became a competitor of our producers, this apparently played a trick on them,’ says Igor Eliseenko.

At the same time, the expert stressed, Siberia's own processing is still very much needed, and the fact that the implementation of the EkoNiva project is now in question has come as a surprise to many:

‘If everyone understood the importance of this EkoNiva plant, it would be completed. I remember The DairyNews interviewed me a year ago and started with the question: will this plant be completed? This question threw me into confusion, I thought: it cannot be that the plant, in which 7 billion was invested, was unfinished in this country.