The plant for deep processing of milk of the holding "AgriVolga" will focus on organic production
The agricultural holding “AgriVolga” has become one of the pioneer companies on the Russian organic market. "Back then, there was no organic law in Russia, and we took the European principles of organic production as a basis", says Sergey Klyuchnikov, commercial Director of “AgriVolga”, who has been working in the holding since 2007. The dairy processing plant was built in 2013. The company can process from 15 to 22 tons of milk per day, depending on the product range.
"From the very beginning, we planned that the plant would produce organic products, but the reality of the market turned out to be such that we could not find demand for all the organic products that we could produce. At the first stage, the plant produced two product lines – natural products under the brand "From Uglich" and organic products "Ugleche Pole", - said Sergey Klyuchnikov. – But every year the demand for organic products increased".
"Our factory was originally designed to produce and process organic products. The fact that we made non-organic products was a temporary measure: some collective farms were in the conversion period, and although their milk was actually organic, this has not been legally confirmed yet", says Elena Yashayeva, General Director of the agricultural holding “AgriVolga”.
Now that the Uglich cheese and dairy plant, part of the agricultural holding “Agrivolga”, has launched an updated dairy line after modernization, it was decided to transfer the production of natural products "From Uglich" to Uglichsky cheese and butter plant and leave only organic production at the Golovinsky plant.
"Our farms have completely passed all conversion cycles and finally switched to organic production", explains Dmitry Lositsky, Director on quality of the agricultural holding “AgriVolga”. – We left the line of traditional dairy products due to a serious increase in demand for organic products. Our brand "Ugleche Polye" has become more and more recognizable and trusted. As a result, we felt a lack of time and capacity at the plant to produce our organic products in the right volumes. After all, to produce non-organic dairy products and organic products in the same production, you need to separate these cycles by time, so that these processes do not intersect, as it must be according to strict rules of organic production. Because of this, the volume of organic production was reduced: we did not have time. Now that we leave only organic production at the plant, the capacity has increased, and the quality of the products has also increased, because there is time to review and optimize organic production".
Dmitry Lositsky also highlights another aspect of why it was necessary to leave the production of traditional product lines. It was important to support the philosophy of organic production: "The people who came to work with us didn't understand what organic was. To grow personnel who would consciously produce an organic product, who would be close to the idea and mission of organics, it is necessary not to be dispersed, but to completely immerse them in organic production. It is important for us that there is a new generation of specialists, young employees who consciously go to work in organic production".
"We are glad that after the adoption of the organic law in Russia, the first large enterprise appeared that processes a large amount of organic milk – up to 22 tons per day", said Oleg Mironenko, Executive Director of the National Organic Union. - We used to have small organic production facilities. However, for the first time it happened that there was a major player in the organic market, able to produce such a volume of organic products that can go to many large retail chains. Now we can look forward to the future with optimism".
As Elena Yashayeva emphasizes, the plant has plans to increase the volume and range of organic products: "We want to try to make curd cheese and drinking yoghurts. Perhaps we will come to plans for the production of baby food, but later". The volume of production at the plant will also grow due to the fact that retail is coming out with offers to make organic products of their own trade marks at the plant. The plant already produces organic products of own trade mark for large retail chains, and also plans to establish the production of organic products for major foreign manufacturers.
Цитаты дня
