Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
New Sandora Plant is the Largest Produce Processor in Crimea in 2005
Agricultural Marketing Project (AMP) was informed that Sandora's Crimea plant finished this year's produce processing season. Sandora purchased this plant from the Mabel company in 2004. About 6,000 tons of raw materials, mostly apples, were purchased and processed there this year. This makes Sandora plant the largest processor in Crimea. This facility produces fruit pulp, which is further supplied to other Sandora plants for juice production.
It should be pointed out that the initial plans were more optimistic, as management expected to process about 12-15,000 tons. The main reason this estimate was not met appears to be the problem of the inability to purchase the planned volumes of raw materials in Crimea this year.
Next year the company management will be mainly focused on the task to purchase enough raw materials and reach the planned processing volumes. The possibility to process tomatoes in the facility is also being considered.
It was reported in September 2005, International Finance Corporation (IFC) provided Sandora LLC (Mykolaiv city) with a loan of US $10 million to increase its processing capacities. Sandora has obtained an IFC loan for the second time; the first being another US $10 million loan in June 2004.
Additional information on Sandora provided by AMP:
Sandora LLC was founded in 1995 and is the largest producer of fruit and vegetable juices and nectars. Presently, the company owns plants in Mykolaiv and Kherson oblasts and the AR Crimea. The market share of Sandora company in Ukrainian is estimated at up to 50%.
In 2004 the company's net sales profit was US $ 99 million with revenues worth US $ 6.7 million. The assortment of commodities includes more than 180 items under seven trademarks. Juices include: "Sandora Fruit of the World"; "Sandora Gold"; "Sandora Classic"; "Sandora Ukrainian Classic", "Sandorik", "Dar", "Sadochok". Sandora employs more than 1,500 people and exports products to Baltic states, Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Canada and Germany. Still, the majority of products are sold on the inner market of Ukraine.