Árklub Limited, which produces a range of chocolate bars under the brand name Vadász (Hunter), is building a chocolate factory in Bátonyterenye with an investment of 8.3 billion forints (EUR 26.7 million) and the help of government funding.

The factory will begin operation at the end of 2019 and will provide jobs for 150 people in the Nógrád County city.

At a press conference held on site, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Parliamentary State Secretary Levente Magyar stressed: “The project being realised is not just important by Bátonyterenye and Nógrád County standards, but this investment is also an important phase and decisive episode in the resuscitation of and old and once world class Hungarian sector of industry, the food industry and within it the confectionery industry”.

“The Hungarian confectionery industry has been practically destroyed during the past 30 years; this is something we are now reversing”, he said.
The Hungarian Government is providing some 3.3 billion forints (EUR 10.6 million) towards the project, which equates to 45 percent of the originally planned total investment of 7.3 billion forints (EUR 23.4 million). Mr. Magyar said the funding was partly a diplomatic reply to the fact that at the end of last year the Budapest factory that also produced Vadász chocolate bars, and which is owned by the Ukrainian President, terminated the company’s contract from one day to the next without explanation.

Mr. Magyar also said that some 40 billion forints (EUR 128.5 million) in economic development had arrived in Nógrád County over the past three years, creating over one thousand new jobs.

“The Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA) is in negotiation with relation to projects of a similar order of magnitude, which could be realised in Nógrád County in the upcoming years”, he said, adding that one of the most important decisions of the upcoming elections will be whether this development I able to continue. “It will definitely continue if the current government is able to continue its work and it will definitely not continue if Hungary is given over to chaos”, he stressed.

At the event, Árkulb Ltd.’s Sales and Marketing Director Csaba Tóth told reporters that the company was founded in 1994 as a family business and has generated a profit every single year; it has 67 products on the market under the Vadász brand name, with various products for every season.
The new plant in Bátonyterenye will be the company’s first factory; so far it had operated using contracted producers, meaning the project will solve the company’s biggest problem, its lack of capacity.

The first phase of the project will involve the construction of a 15 thousand square metre production hall in the city by the end of the year. The new machinery will be arriving early next year, and according to plan installing the technology will take six months, which will be followed by trial production, meaning the plant will begin running at full steam by the end of 2019. The vast majority of the company’s products will be produced in Bátonyterenye.
At the event, Mayor of Bátonyterenye József Nagy-Majdon told reporters that preparations for the investment had begun three years ago, and expressed his thanks to the owners of Árgép Limited for having stuck by the city throughout.

Member of Parliament for East Nógrád County Zsolt Becsó highlighted the fact that in 2010 the reinforcement of identity and the development of the city and its economy were set as important goals, and after eight years we can state that significant results have been achieved in all three fields. The over 5 billion forints (EUR 16 million) in government-funded development projects realised in the city have included nursery school developments, a cycling path, an incubator house and the expansion of the city’s industrial park, as well as the conversion of the A21 main road into a dual carriageway, he told the press.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)