The unit fitted has a processing line with a length of about 5.5km. Located at the firm’s plant in Szczecin-Dąbie, the latest project, developed as part of an investment of 100 million Polish Zloty (€24m).
It is designed to enable the company to increase its slaughtering capacity from the current level of 100,000 head per day to as much as 180,000 head per day by the end of 2016.
As part of its ongoing investment programme, earlier this year, the poultry meat processor opened a new production hall at its plant in Goleniów, in northern Poland, which was fitted with a new line for meat cutting and packaging, as well as a new storage facility. The project allowed the firm to raise its poultry meat products cutting capacity to about 270 tonnes (t) per month. The two expansions marked the largest investment programme in Drobimex’s history.
'New technology'
“This is a completely new technology of cold storage which has a positive impact on enhancing other production activities,” Klaus Roppel, chief executive of Drobimex, told local news site Portalspozywczy.pl.
The company’s plants in Szczecin-Dąbie and Goleniów are operated by an aggregate workforce of some 700. Its portfolio includes various processed poultry meat products, including sausages, hams, frankfurters, pates and ready meals, according to data released by Drobimex.
The poultry meat processor sells its output to a number of major retail chains, including Carrefour, Auchan, Selgros, Real, Netto, Lidl and Aldi. Drobimex is also the largest supplier of poultry parts to US fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken in the Polish market. In addition to the domestic market, the company exports its products to the UK, France, Germany, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Azerbaijan.
Set up in 1954, the Polish firm is headquartered in Szczecin, about 500km north of the country’s capital Warsaw.
Polish market
Since 2002, Drobimex has been part of Germany’s PHW group. In the Polish market, the group also owns local poultry meat processor Bomadek, which operates a facility in Trzebiechów, in Poland’s western region. In the financial year 2013/2014, the German group posted total revenues of about €2.3bn, of which a total of €160.6m was generated by the two Poland-based firms, according to figures from PHW.
In 2014, Poland’s poultry industry businesses produced some 2.1m t of products. Of these, about 867,000t were intended for exports, as shown by data from the state-run Agricultural Market Agency (ARR). This translates into over 41% of the country’s total output.