Penza, 19 June 2017. PenzaNews. On Monday, June 19, during a business trip to the Penza region, the Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Alexander Tkachev visited the largest turkey production complex in the country and inspected realization of the Damate Group project aimed at expansion of existing capacity to 110,000 tons per year.

© PenzaNewsBuy the photo

The head of the federal department inspected construction sites and discussed prospects of company development with the management of the holding.

"The state has given priority to turkey production lately, which allows getting investors involved in the industry. In two years, the volume of turkey production increased by half – to 280,000 tons," he noted.

Alexander Tkachev added that by 2020 it is planned to increase the volume by half again – to 400,000 tons.

The Damate Group project presupposes increase of all stages of the vertically-integrated structure. It also presupposes expansion of incubator capacity to 19.5 million eggs per year, introduction of additional 116 poultry houses, doubling capacity of a compound feed mill and an elevator, as well as construction of a new poultry factory.

At present, active work is conducted at all sites.

16 poultry-houses for breeding and 24 ones for fattening were built and put into operation. 20 other poultry-houses are under construction.

Works on expansion of incubator capacity were completed, additional lines for formula-feed plant were purchased. Construction works were finished at the elevator, assembly of silos is conducted.

Construction works at the new poultry factory entered the stage of completion. In the near future, delivery of contracted equipment will begin. By the end of the year 2017, the company plans to carry out a test technical start-up of the plant, which is an example of an innovative approach to production organization.

"Slaughter and cutting capacity, which reaches 5,000 heads per hour, is the highest in the industry. The time between poultry delivery from a poultry-house and end product shipment is less than 20 hours. All poultry will be cooled exclusively by air without use of water. 36 packaging lines will allow shipping the same number of stock keeping units simultaneously, which will shorted the time of order formation at times," the press service of Damate Group told PenzaNews.

According to the results of the year 2016, Damate Group occupies the leading position in the Russian Federation by volume of turkey production. In its work, the company relies on strict adherence to biological safety norms, and carries out extensive work on introduction of digital technologies. Over the next 3 years, Damate plans to hand over a large part of production processes under control of artificial intelligence.