Marina Zibareva, PepsiCo communications director for Russia, Ukraine and CIS told DairyReporter, “PepsiCo aims to deliver long-term sustainable growth in Russia and the sale of our Anna plant will enable us to achieve this goal by focusing on continued development of our major production sites.”
She said the Anna dairy plant remains fully operational and production of long shelf-life sterilized milk will continue as normal at the site while the company seeks a buyer.
The Anna dairy plant was built in 1977 and became part of Wimm-Bill-Dann JSC in 2001. PepsiCo acquired Wimm-Bill-Dann in 2011.
The Voronezh region is in the southwest of the country, bordering Ukraine.
Dairy plant in Nizhny Novogorod
PepsiCo has also launched a new line for manufacturing Agusha and Chudo Detki baby food yogurts as the final stage of its large-scale investment project to expand capacity of the Nizhny Novgorod Dairy Plant, which is part of Wimm-Bill-Dann.
With the launch of the new line, the total capacity of the plant, 400km east of Moscow, will double.
The expansion has also resulted in the creation of 40 additional jobs at the plant.
President of PepsiCo Russia, Ukraine and CIS, Silviu Popovich, said the expansion project started three years ago.
“As a result, we have built a new baby food manufacturing department and installed five new lines. Now we will be able to manufacture high quality baby food locally using milk purchased from Nizhny Novgorod farmers,” Popovich said.
Regional support
“Our efforts support local milk producers in line with the regional development agenda. This project would not be possible without the support provided by the regional administration.”
In 2015, milk shakes and liquid milk production lines were launched at the plant; in summer 2016, a drinkable yogurt line was launched.
The Nizhny Novgorod dairy plant, which was built in 1984, is one of the largest dairy sites in the region, with 15 production lines.
Product range
Agusha was launched as a baby food brand in 2001. Today, the brand’s product range includes milk, kefir, yogurts, curds, fermented milk drinks, juices, compotes, purees, porridge, milk formula and milk shakes.
Chudo Detki are products manufactured specially for preschool and school-aged children.