"100% of raw materials are sourced from large domestic producers"

In the face of external challenges and sanctions, Russian business has faced a number of difficulties. Despite the rising cost of raw materials and equipment and the rising cost of loans, it ensures the country's food security. Moreover, in such a situation domestic business manages to expand the geography of exports - for example, in the foreseeable future supplies of Russian-made sausage products to China may begin. Negotiations on this are already being conducted by the Abi company, which, despite the sanctions, is developing exports and increasing production of its products for domestic and foreign markets. Tatyana Trifonova, General Director of Abi, told Izvestia about how the new conditions have changed the work of the business.

- Tatyana Vladimirovna, at the board meeting of the Ministry of Agriculture on the results of the year, the head of the department Oksana Lut said that Russia's food security will be ensured. In this connection it is interesting, what results does your company end this year with? Did you manage to fulfill the state objectives?

- We are working on many goals set by the state, including achieving national food security. This year we completed a large investment program, which lasted four years. During this time, the company invested 26 billion rubles in the development of production facilities, and not only.

As a result of this work, in 2024 we launched a new sausage production plant with a capacity of 500 tons per day. And early next year we plan to launch a second plant to produce ready-to-eat food products such as chebupeli, chebureks and nuggets.

After the launch of these two plants, the total production volume of the company will double, plus their products will be exported.

- At such volumes, what raw materials do you use: Russian or foreign? How have the sanctions affected your company?

- 100% of meat raw materials come to us from large domestic producers. When more serious sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2021, we had a difficult period, because there was a lot of imported packaging. But over the years we have already predominantly switched to Russian.

- And as for the technological equipment? Is it domestic?

- Before the sanctions, all industrial equipment was imported. Probably 90% of it was from Germany, and the rest from other European countries. Making sausages and ready-to-eat food products is a very high-tech process that requires the use of modern facilities.

The difficult economic situation forced us to learn how to make our own domestic equipment. That is, together with Russian developers, we started to introduce our technologies into production by means of reverse engineering (the process of developing a product on the basis of a finished sample - Izvestia).

Secondly, every piece of equipment needs software. For example, a program when we choose the modes of production of a particular product depending on its recipe. Some products are tender boiled, some are smoked and more dense. For their production, we set a certain temperature, cooking time, serving special components.

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We set up our own company, Abi Digital Technologies. Now it employs about 300 people, who are engaged not only in operational support of current systems, but also in the development of their own software products.

We have developed one software product - construction surveying - we use and have already registered it with Rospatent. Our IT specialists are also developing other products.

Besides, after the introduction of sanctions we had difficulties with spare parts - components. To solve this problem, we opened an engineering company, Abi Engineering. Now it, among other things, is engaged in R&D, development of technical documentation for the parts and equipment we need.

- In the conditions of rising prices, how do you manage to keep the price range and quality acceptable for consumers? How much do you invest directly in this sphere?

- As I have already said, we invest a lot in quality. Firstly, these are new production facilities. Secondly, we have a large quality department. Competent employees work there who know how the technological process should be organized and check it to make sure that there are no violations. And plus we have opened our own quality laboratory. For this purpose, we built a special building and equipped it with the necessary equipment. Now this laboratory, which, by the way, has received state accreditation, checks all raw materials that come from suppliers, as well as finished products.

- What products are most in demand among the population today?

- The main volume of our production is sausage products. Even since the times of the Soviet Union, remember, they made movies with queues for sausage, not for meat. So we can say that sausage in Russia is such a national product. Although, of course, sausages are also traditionally in demand among buyers.

In addition, we can now see that consumption of fully cooked products, such as chebureks, nuggets, and chebupels, is growing strongly. It's convenient for people: buy it, heat it up, and you're full.

Also in this category, we still have a vegetable segment, which we produce under the Foodgital brand. These are products that use only plant-based ingredients such as chickpeas, peas and wheat. We also produce nuggets, burger patty and other products under this brand. Now these products do not take a very large share in the total production volume, but they show good positive dynamics from year to year.

- At the end of November, your company within the framework of the All-Russian ECG Forum received the award "Leader of ECG-rating. For Contribution to Achievement of National Development Goals". What does this status mean and what advantages does it give to your company?

- This is a very important event and a big award for us. ECG-rating is an independent assessment of business aimed at determining the level of its reliability, social and environmental responsibility. The very parameters of this assessment are embedded in the name.

Thus, the letter "E" in the abbreviation of the rating name means "ecology". That is, here we assessed the environmental friendliness of our company's production. We scored very high on this parameter, as we use modern, technologically safe equipment with various degrees of purification. In addition, 100% of our product packaging is recyclable.

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The second letter "K" is human resources - it means the company's work with employees. We pay a lot of attention to this. For more than 10 years we have had a very large-scale social program, which provides various benefits and compensations for our employees. Plus, we have a program for free medical diagnostics. In addition, we make sure that we have comfortable workplaces both in production and in our offices. In addition, the company monitors the implementation and emergence of new national projects in Russia, for which it develops separate programs.

The third letter "G" is the state. Leadership in this evaluation parameter means that we go together with the state, which, in turn, supports the leaders of the ECG-rating. For example, in our Vladimir region, for the leaders of the rating, we issued the OZ - the regional law on responsible investor, which, among other things, gave us the opportunity to reduce the time required to obtain state and municipal services.

- Russia is once again discussing raising the key rate. Many sectors of the economy have found themselves in a difficult situation because of this. How has the economic situation affected your investment projects?

- This year we are completing a major investment program, under which we have fulfilled all our obligations. Now we are developing a new large-scale investment project until 2030. By December 15, we should have it finalized. I cannot name the total amount of investments yet, but next year we plan to invest about 10 billion rubles.

- How do the company's export opportunities look today? To which countries do you supply your products and with which countries are you negotiating deliveries?

- We are actively developing exports, which is a very interesting area for our company. Today we supply our products to 15 countries. These are all CIS countries, plus Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and China. In addition, we are now negotiating with a number of other countries. We hope that deliveries to Vietnam and the Seychelles are about to start.

- It is clear that the CIS countries have an idea of Russian products. What do countries like the UAE or China choose?

- All our products, including sausage and ready-to-eat foodstuffs, go to the United Arab Emirates. Perhaps this is due to the fact that there are a lot of our compatriots there. Saudi Arabia is a more Muslim state with strict requirements to products related to religious aspects. We send our plant-based products there. We also ship Foodgital to China, as well as sweet baked goods such as chebupai. These are pies with cherry and other fillings. For now, importation of finished processed meat products there is closed for us. But the Chinese would very much like to start supplying our sausage. We are now working together with our government on this issue.