TH Group gets to grips with another dairy plant in Russia

The hi-tech dairy plant will be gigantic in scale, and will help establish TH true MILK as a household brand in Russia

In Moscow’s Volokolamsk district last week, the group broke ground on the first stage of the project, worth $500 million. Based in both the Moscow and Kaluga oblasts, the project officially marks the appearance of Vietnam’s largest agricultural and foodstuff project in Russia.

Possessing the TH true MILK brand name, TH Group will build this project with the financial consultancy of BAC A BANK.

This project will be 2.32 times bigger in capital and 3.78 times bigger in area than the group’s existing $1.2 billion, 37,000ha project in the central province of Nghe An’s Nghia Dan district.

The new project, which will cover 140,000 hectares of materials, will be deployed in three stages, until 2026.

The first stage will be focused on constructing three clusters of dairy farms, auxiliary facilities, a cow feed mill, an office area, a workers’ hostel, and a fresh milk processing mill with a daily capacity of 800 tonnes.

This stage is expected to have a herd of 45,000 cattle, of which 21,600 will be earmarked for milking.

It is expected that in mid 2017, the first milk products will be available for marketing.

The second stage will include new clusters of dairy farms, auxiliary facilities, and another fresh milk processing mill with a daily capacity of 1,700 tonnes.

With total investment capital expected to reach $796 million, this stage will likely have 100,000 dairy cows, with 43,200 milked on the group’s 40,000ha facility.

TH Group will build the third stage from 2020-2026, including new clusters of farms, auxiliary facilities, and another large-scale fresh milk processing mill. This stage, expected to cost an investment of $1.59 billion, will cover 80,000ha.

This stage will have 200,000 cows, with 86,400 being milked. This will raise the total number of cattle for the three stages to 350,000 including 151,200 milked.

The colossal fresh milk processing mill will cover 1,000ha including office buildings, warehouses, a workers’ hostel, a sports area, and a commercial display area.

The mill will have a capacity of 3,400 tonnes per day, raising the total daily capacity of the project’s three stages to 5,900 tonnes.

The project, expected to employ 6,000 workers, will use state-of-the-art technology imported from world-famous livestock production technology developers such as Israel’s Afimilk, Germany’s GEA, Sweden’s Delaval, and the US’ BouMatic.

Commending this project while attending the ground breaking ceremony, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that “This project will significantly help Russia’s milk industry in particular and agricultural sector in general. It is also considered a typical agricultural project in Vietnam and Russia’s co-operation.

“The government will give the most favourable conditions to the project. I do believe that the project will be implemented effectively,” Phuc said.

TH’s chairwoman Thai Huong said that this project was given great support from Russia’s government.

“Russia is reforming its agricultural sector via a series of incentives for investors. And now we are here to help Russia further develop its milk industry. We hope that TH true MILK will become a big brand name in Russia,” she said.