As of 14 March this year, the activity of the slaughtering and cutting shop of AB Kaišiadorių Paukštynas, a company owned by AB Linas Agro Group, will be suspended and the birds will be transported for slaughter to AB Vilniaus Paukštynas, where the slaughterhouse will start working in three shifts. The meat products and roasting unit, as well as poultry farming will continue operations in Kaišiadorys.
‘With the prices of feed materials, gas, and electricity soaring to unprecedented heights, the poultry business is becoming unprofitable across Europe. Some neighboring countries are also looking for a way out of the situation by reducing VAT rates on food or directly supporting producers. We are also looking for internal reserves in production to improve the economic situation in the poultry business.
We want to load the slaughter equipment of Vilniaus Paukštynas at full capacity and run it around the clock. Initially, the total volume of poultry meat processed by the two companies will be 24% lower than before. However, in the future, when the situation in the poultry sector improves, we will increase production capacity to the current level. We plan to carry out other activities in the vacant workshop in Kaišiadorys and are currently considering several promising options with the hope to implement them within 1-2 years’, says Andrius Pranckevičius, Vice-Chairman of the Management Board of Linas Agro Group, who heads Linas Agro Group’s poultry business, grain processing and agricultural activities.
It is estimated that the economic effect from the transfer of slaughtering to Vilniaus Paukštynas will be achieved already in the financial year 2022/2023 and be around EUR 1.7 million each year.
To preserve the jobs of the employees, the employees of the Kaišiadorys Paukštynas slaughterhouse will be offered workplaces in Rudamina, Vilnius district, and transport to and from work will be organized at the company’s expense.
AB Vilniaus Paukštynas and AB Kaišiadorių Paukštynas are companies with a long tradition of poultry farming, dating back to the middle of the last century, and with a combined workforce of around 2,000 employees. Both poultry companies produce almost 96,000 tons of poultry meat and poultry products a year and belong to the largest Baltic agri-food production group AB Linas Agro Group.
