“We have developed the waste land of 16.4 hectares into a modern confectionery plant for less than two years,” said Petro Poroshenko, Ukrainian minister for economic development and trade and the founder of Roshen.
Speaking at the plant’s opening ceremony, Poroshenko said it had an annual production capacity of 120,000t of chocolate products. It has a total production area of 62,000m2.
Booming chocolate market
The development represents the latest pillar in Roshen’s growth strategy as it seeks to build on Russia’s booming chocolate market. Euromonitor International has predicted that the market will grow by 28% to 11bn by 2014. Mars opened an €80m chocolate factory in the Ulyanovsk region of Russia in June.
Roshen’s move follows €8m worth of investment in its caramel facility in Lithuania in 2010, which added new production lines and aimed at increasing its efficiency. The company is also in the process of constructing a $250m plant at Lipetsk, which it expects to complete in 2016.
It expects the Lipetsk facility to have the capacity to manufacture 253,000t of confectionery, using 40 production lines.
Roshen owns factories in Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Mariupol and Kremenchuk in Ukraine, the Lipetsk-based Likonf confectionery plant in Russia and Klaipedos Konditerija confectionery in Lithuania.
Roshen produces 410,000t of products per year, clocked up more than $1bn in sales in its last financial year, employs more than 10,000 people and is a subsidiary of the Ukrainian Industrial and Investment Concern.
The company, which is one of Ukraine’s largest confectionery producers, announced the start of operations at its Vinnytsia factory earlier this week, in accordance with strategic targets. The company’s products include sugar candies, chocolate, waffles, cookies, fruit jellies and cakes.
