Sokołów invests €26 million to boost production
"We purchased a number of machines for our facility in Dębica," Bogusław Miszczuk, the president of the company’s management board, told local news site Portalspozywczy.pl. "We also expanded the plant in Sokołów Podlaski where we built a cold storage facility that expands our storage capacities.”
Miszczuk said that, owing to the investment in Dębica, in western Poland, the meat processor was enabled to add 11 types of salami snacks that "are becoming increasingly popular, both in Poland and abroad" to its product range.
In addition to the plants in Sokołów Podlaski and Dębica, the group operates facilities in Robaków, Koło, Czyżew, Jarosław and Tarnów, as well as an office in Poland’s capital Warsaw.
Sokołów specialises in processing pork, beef and poultry meat. These include hams, sausages, frankfurters, salami, pâté and a wide range of meat snacks, according to data from the company.
Last year, the Polish meat processor added a total of 59 products to its portfolio, according to its president.
"We managed to create two completely new [product] lines that are our response to the shifting nutrition trends and consumers’ needs," Miszczuk said. "Our new Poultry Premium line offers high-quality poultry meat products. These include, among others, Krakowska-style sausage from poultry filet, Vienna sausages and poultry tenderloin."
Sokołów exports its products to some 40 countries worldwide. Its main foreign markets include the EU’s member states, the US, Ivory Coast, the UAE, and Lebanon. In the domestic market, the group operates 40 logistics centres. In addition to its supplies to major retail chains, Sokołów owns its own retail store chain that consists of 57 outlets across the country. The majority of the stores are located in Poland’s central, southern and eastern regions.
The company was the first Polish meat business to become listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) in 1993, but it was delisted in 2006. In 2004, Finland’s HKScan and Danish Crown formed a joint venture to jointly acquire Sokołów. In early 2014, Danish Crown became the company’s only owner after signing a deal worth some €180 million to take over HKScan’s 50% stake in Sokołów.
The company offers its products under the Gold, Sokoliki, Uczta Qulinarna, Naturrino, Darz Bór, Wyroby Babuni, Salami z Dębicy, and other brands.
The meat business is based in Sokołów Podlaski, in Poland’s eastern region of Podlasie. Sokołów says its facilities are BRC-, ISO 14001-, and IFS-certified. The group is operated by a workforce of more than 7,000 employees, and has an annual output of about 300,000 tonnes (t) of various products.
Sokołów says it reports annual revenues in the range of PLN 3.2 million (€757 million).
