“Alföldi Tej Ltd. is developing a new processing plant in Debrecen with an investment of some 12 billion forints; the investment will create 181 new jobs”, Managing Director of Hungarian milk processing company Alföldi Tej Ltd. Tibor Mélykúti announced on Wednesday in Budapest. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told reporters that the Government was contributing 4.8 billion forint s in non-returnable funding towards the project.

“We have succeeded in coming to an agreement with the Chinese government on the export of Hungarian milk products, Chinese experts have completed an audit of Alföldi Tej, the results of which will soon be come available, and then the company’s products will can also set off for the Chinese market”. “The performance of Alföldi Tej fundamentally determines the performance of the Hungarian milk industry”, the Minister declared.

“The company group purchases some 320 million litres of milk-a-year, making it Hungary’s largest purchaser, while total production by the group’s members represent a quarter of Hungary’s total raw milk production”, Mr. Mélykúti told the press. According to the Managing Director, the company decided on the new investment because the quantity of milk produced by the group’s members exceeds the 245 million litre annual capacity of its plant in Székesfehérvár, and 20 percent of raw milk production was having to be sold as a raw ingredient, often with significant losses.

“Via the new plant in Debrecen, the company would like to produce high added value products using outstanding ingredients and will be producing 8500 tons of cheese and 7000 tons of powdered milk products each year using state-of-the-art technology. This is the largest milk industry investment in recent decades”, he added. The group’s increased capacity will also enable an increase in its range of suppliers.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade spoke about the fact that there is also a technological competition underway within the food industry, and the Hungarian food industry must stand its ground in a competition of quality over quantity. “It has every opportunity of succeeding and the technological developments involved in this latest investment will make it capable of producing the most competitive and highest quality products”, he said.

Mayor of Debrecen László Papp said that the food industry used to be one of Debrecen’s strategic sectors, but the milk sector has found itself in a major crisis following the regime change, and had been successfully salvaged thanks to major cooperation. “Manufacturing ‘crisis-proof’ products with high added value is extremely important to the City”, he declared.

Alföldi Tej Ltd. was founded in 2003 by 23 milk producers and has since expanded dynamically to now include 102 members. 30 percent of them are sole proprietors and small-scale producers, while the remainder are joint ventures that employ a total of 5000 people. According to publically available company data, Alföldi Tej Ltd. realised 42.9 billion forints in turnover and 216 million forints in after tax profits in 2015, while in the previous year the group recorded profits of 405 million forints and total revenues of 216 million 40.1 billion forints.

(MTI)