July 1 2008, 09:39

Russia: Rostovskaya region will pickle cucumbers for McDonald's

A large vegetable processing plant is under construction in the settlement Bagayevskaya, Rostovskaya region. According to Victor Kolotov, the Director of the to-be-constructed enterprise, the final capacity of the plant will be up to 10,000 tons of vegetables per year.

Victor Kolotov explains that the first stage of the enterprise will be launched in 2009. The local inhabitants: the farmers and the owners of the private households will provide some raw materials; the enterprise plans to independently grow vegetables too. There are such technologies nowadays which let the farmers grow one and the same crop on one field, so that the plant shouldn't worry about raw materials. The plant capacity will reach up to 4,000 tons of the ready products in the first year, Mr. Kolotov informs.

"Today our local inhabitants are able to grow up to 100,000 tons of vegetables during one season; in reality they manage to grow just 40-50,000 tons, because the processing industry is absent in the district", Alexander Torov, the Deputy Chief on Agricultural Issues of the local administration complained during his interview with the journalist of "Caucasus Unit".

According to Mr. Torov, the administration still hopes to revive the agricultural production in the district, so they are constantly searching for the investors. "We are lucky, there are people who want to construct the plant for pickled cucumbers production in Bagayevskaya settlement", Mr. Torov says.

LLC "AGRAM" plans to invest around RUR 50 mln. to the project. The plant is constructed on the location of the winery of the former food factory. The cucumbers will be pickled in 14% salty solution in the 50 tons vessels. After that the products will be exposed to the 1-2% salty solution. The cucumbers will be sliced on the special equipment and packed to 4 kg packages.

There is a plan to supply ready products in boxes to McDonald's restaurants throughout Russia. This product will also be supplied to the public catering facilities of Moscow city.