Russia’s meat giant, Miratorg, has opened the country’s largest beef processing plant, marking the company’s final completed link in the first stage of its beef production cluster project that has been in development since 2010. The total cost of the plant equals US$250 million at the exchange rate at the point of allocation of funds, and the cost of the overall beef rearing and processing project, which has been in development since 2010, has been US$757 million at the same rate. The plant will have two production lines – the first producing general beef for domestic production, the second producing halal products for exports, and will have an initial processing capacity of 100 head of cattle per day which will be increased to its full capacity of 1,000 head per day in 2015. The plant will produce 5,000 tons of beef products in the remainder of 2014 and will boost production to 40,000 tons in 2015. Miratorg currently has 250,000 head of cattle across 33 farms which has been imported from the U.S. and Australia, however as the company looks to begin the second stage of its expansion project in early 2015, five more farms are planned to be built. Upon completion of both phases of the expansion project, Miratorg plans to double its production by 2020, replacing 15% of total Russian beef imports. The total combined cost of the both the first and second stages of the expansion are estimated to be US$1.62 billion at current exchange rates.
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