“The aim of the planned investment is to introduce innovative solutions that have not been implemented to date in Poland and which will allow the company to offer improved products both in the domestic and foreign markets,” Indykpol said in a statement.
The business aims to increase its facility’s processing capacity by some 74%, enhance the quality of its products, expand the slaughterhouse in Olsztyn, and modernise the facility’s evisceration line.
The company said this would be achieved through “the expansion of the existing facilities, construction of new facilities, acquisitions of new machines for production lines and the adoption of the production process to the acquired technologies”.
105 new jobs
As part of the investment, the company has declared plans to create about 105 new jobs at the facility until the end of 2020. Company representatives said they had conducted a consultation process on their investment plans with researchers from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences and the Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences.
The meat processing plant is located in the Warmia-Mazury special economic zone (WMSSE), in Poland’s north-eastern region. This helps Indykpol with preferential tax treatment for its investment, and access to state aid until at least 2026, when the country’s 16 special economic zones are scheduled to cease their operations.
Indykpol specialises in various processed poultry meat products, and its portfolio consists of hams, sausages, frankfurters, pâtés and other products, according to data from the company. Indykpol claims it is the country’s largest turkey meat processor.
In the domestic market, Indykpol distributes its output through 14 distribution centres that supply products to more than 10,000 retail stores.
Revenues up, profits down
The planned investments have been enabled by the company’s positive financial results. In the first nine months of 2016, Indykpol reported aggregate revenues of some PLN1bn (€232m), an increase of 10.4% compared with the same period a year earlier. From January to September 2016, the meat processor posted a net profit of PLN19.5m (€4.6m), down from PLN29.4m (€6.8m) in the first nine months of 2015.
In addition to the facility in Olsztyn, Indykpol owns a meat factory in Świebodzin, in the country’s western region, a feed production facility in Poland’s Olsztynek, and a meat processing and feed production subsidiary in Russia’s federal subject Tatarstan, according to data from the firm.
Set up in 1951 as a state-run meat processing business, the company was privatised in 1991, and subsequently rebranded as Indykpol. Since October 1994, the company has been listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). Local firm Rolmex SA is Indykpol’s majority shareholder, with a stake of 62.68%, while private pension fund Nationale-Nederlanden PTE SA owns 12.48% of the shares in the meat processor.