Italy’s Pini Beef acquires Polish meat processing plant

Under the plan, Pini Beef will launch production in Końskowola in early 2014 and create 50 new jobs at the plant. In the long term, the Polish facility is to have a workforce of 400. The plant’s products will be mainly intended for export markets.

The move comes about five years after the Polish business filed for bankruptcy in 2008. In 2009, the Końskowola-based plant was leased by local meat processor Lumi, but was shut down again later on.

The company has announced further investments at the facility, which could amount to a total of PLN70m (US$22.4m). With the aim of gradually increasing the plant’s output, Pini Beef is planning to expand the production space of the facility. Initially, the Polish plant will process 300 head per day, but this is to be increased to as much as 1,000 head per day, company representatives told local media.

Końskowola is located in Poland’s south-eastern Lubelskie region, about 130km from the country’s capital city Warsaw.

Established in 2013 and headquartered in Warsaw, Pini Beef is owned by Italian businessman Romano Pini, whose brother Piero Pini operates the largest pork processing plant in Poland.

The Kutno-based facility was launched in April 2010, and it has an annual capacity of about 4m head per year, according to figures released by Pini Polonia. It is estimated that the company holds a 17% share in the Polish pork processing market.

In addition to its Poland-based companies, the Pini family also operates meat processing businesses in Italy, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.