“We will export 25% of our production this year. We’ll increase shipments to our traditional partners and also sign contracts with other foreign partners. Export demand is much higher than we can handle right now,” Bodea explained.
The chicken producer exports to Hungary and large EU markets such as Germany and France. The company is not the only one in the business using exports as a way to offset losses on the domestic market.
Ave Impex budgeted revenue of EUR33.8 million for 2013, up 30% on the year. The growth should come from a production increase by 30% as a result of partnerships with several poultry farmers to which the company supplies day old chicks and feed and gets the grown-up poultry to take to the slaughterhouse.
Growth should also be helped by the acquisition of a former cattle farm, which will be converted into a chicken farm, for EUR1.6 million.
Bodea said his plant is currently processing 780,000 head of poultry a year and he hopes to reach 1.3 million head of poultry a year following the acquisition and the increase in the partnerships with the farmers who are now supplying raw material to his plant.
The entrepreneur also invested in a feed plant, which is already operational. The plant cost him EUR6 million, but the investment is starting to pay off, having already helped him cut feed cost by 7%, Bodea added.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)