Sberbank lends Cherkizovo $250m to boost pork production

 The Russian meat producing  Cherkizovo Group has received a $250 million loan from the  state-run Sberbank to build a string of facilities that will increase its pork production capacity by 70%, the bank confirmed yesterday.
The investment marks Cherkizovo’s latest move to expand its share of the Russian market as the embargo on Western meat products continues to sideline U.S. and EU competitors. The  company has already begun construction of a pig-breeding facility in the Voronezh region, about 500km south of Moscow. and will soon complement this with a 500,000-ton capacity compound feed mill nearby  and a slaughterhouse in the neighboring Lipetsk region.
The total cost of the pork production chain is expected to reach $340m and the new facilities will enable Cherkizovo to increase its pig-raising capacity to 330,000 tons of live pigs per year and its total meat production to more than one million tons per year, the statement said.
Cherkizovo is one of Russia’s only publicly traded agricultural companies, and has emerged as one of the biggest winners from Russia’s embargo on Western food imports. Its poultry sales rose 20% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2014, while sales at its meat processing division climbed 28%.