Company of the Month
Eurodon LLC was founded in 2003. Today it is the leading turkey meat manufacturer in Russia, which products are marketed under the brand name INDOLINA. To find out how the company became so successful in only 10 years, Manufacturing Journal interviewed the general director of the company Vadim Vaneev. The story of Eurodon is the story of persistence and belief in success despite many obstacles.
Tough beginnings
Eurodon is a fairly young but very successful company. However, today’s success would not have been possible without patience and confidence of the company’s founders. Vadim Vaneev, one of the founders and the general director of Eurodon described the beginnings as follows: “In the beginning in 2003 no one believed that our project will be successful. The turkey market in Russia did not exist at the time. The project was considered unpromising by 95% of our colleagues and partners and our partners from abroad called me ‘a dreamer from Russia’. But I never stopped believing that turkey is just what we need. With business plan in hand I began looking for an investor and the search lasted 4 years. I applied to various financial groups, venture capital funds, banks, and private investors, but no one has agreed to provide the funding for the project. I managed to get acquainted with Valery Gergiev - the director and principal conductor of the Mariinsky Theatre. I knew that I had little chance to secure the maestro’s support. He has a very tight schedule and in order to talk with him for five minutes, I had to wait for him in the waiting room for two days. But persistence paid off, because he introduced me to Vladimir Dmitriev, who at that time was one of the leaders of Vneshtorgbank. Mr Dmitriev almost immediately became interested in the project. My main argument was that turkey meat is not present on the Russian market, even though it is a popular product around the world; and secondly, turkey meat is a healthy lean meat that the consumers will buy. The specialists at the bank had been examining the project for over a year, after all the procedures had been completed they signed an agreement to fund the project. The first several years were very difficult for the company. In 2006 the crisis in the construction market put the project at risk as prices of construction materials increased dramatically. All this time our team struggled to find additional sources of funding. Our foreign partners with whom we were built facilities abandoned us. Banks did not want to provide funding. We had to give all the money to pay salaries to our employees. But in the end it turned out well, we were able to move the project to the State Corporation “Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank) where we received funding that allowed us to continue our work.
Achievement and social responsibility
Eurodon’s team managed to create a unique and successful production facility. The company produces affordable, tasty, and healthy products. Turkey meat is low in cholesterol. Turkey has less total fat and saturated fat than other meats than. Turkey is also highest in methionine, the essential amino acid required for complete protein usage. “We put the quality of products above all, that is why our customers trust us and choose our products,” explained Vadim Vaneev. Moreover, the company creates truly unique projects for Russian standards. All facilities are built in rural areas and the company addresses both economic and social problems of the regions in which it operates. “We develop special agricultural clusters where our employees can work, live and raise their children. We strive to create jobs where they are most needed. In this way, we are laying the foundations for a fundamentally new approach to business,” said Vadim Vaneev. The current turkey complex is based on an area of 160 ha. It includes 12 separate poultry units with 93 poultry yards, an incubator, a meat processing plant with a slaughterhouse, a formula feed plant and a veterinary laboratory. Integrated production cycle is applied at different stages of production starting from production of hatching eggs and animal feed to meat production and processing. All Eurodon’s facilities have been built from scratch. Two years ago Eurodon’s turkey hatching eggs complex was the only one on the territory of the former USSR. The production capacity of the complex amounted to 6.2 million eggs per year, which allowed to form turkey flock for production of 30 thousand tons of turkey meat per year. The complex also allowed to reduce epidemiological risks, to improve quality of genetic material and to ensure that Eurodon does not need to purchase hatching eggs from third-party producers.
Future development plans
In 2011 Eurodon produced 33 thousand tons of turkey meat in live weight. Eurodon provides about 40 percent of Russia’s turkey meat. Additional facilities had been built in order to allow the company to increase production by another 4000 tons in 2012.Today, the company is working on another large-scale project that will ensure cultivation and processing of 33 thousand tons of turkey meat delivered in 2011 and 36-37 thousand tonnes planned in 2012. At the final stage the facility will deliver a total 90,000 tons of turkey meat. In 2012 Eurodon plans to proceed with the construction. It is necessary to build 570,000 square meters of facilities to complete the project. The scope of this project is unique both by Russian but by international standards. In addition to the new turkey meat production complex Eurodon is planning to build a duck meat production complex with production capacity of 20 000 tons per annum. The complex will be located on the territory of more than 200 hectares. The duck meat complex will include various facilities such as poultry yards, feed mill and elevator, meat processing facility, and other. “This will be an exceptional project, because we have studied the practices of the world’s leading manufacturers of duck meat and adapted them to Russian conditions,” explained the general director of the company, “In the past people in Russia and the neighboring countries consumed a lot of duck meat, but today the duck meat is very rear in the region. At the same time duck meat is popular all around the world. This is actually a lost segment of the Russian poultry industry, which I am sure in the near future will be restored.” Additionally, during Q2 and Q3 of 2012 Eurodon plans to finish construction of a house-building enterprise. The new facility will use the technology of the German company Avermann. It will allow to build individual houses, apartment buildings, office buildings and industrial buildings from reinforced concrete. The estimated capacity of the enterprise is 150 thousand square meters of housing per year. Today, Eurodon also has another successfully operating business - a complex of steel production plants which was launched in 2010. It manufactures steel structures, lightweight composite sandwich panels, galvanized steel and colored steel parts. During the construction of the turkey meat production complex a large number of construction materials was required and the materials were delivered over large distances. Running this business will allow Eurodon to save on construction materials during realization of the two new projects. The company has formed a team of highly skilled professionals, who can create new projects from scratch. High efficiency is achieved because the company has its own construction company and uses the materials produced at its steel production plants. The plants are located in different areas of the Rostov region, where the company created about 3,900 jobs.
Current and future markets
The main markets for Eurodon include the cities in the Western part of Russia. Deliveries are carried out to major federal and regional trade networks such as “METRO”, “Auchan”, “Real,” “Crossroads,” “Okay”, “Kalinka-Stockman,” “Thunder,” “Ramstore”, “Giperglobus” and other supermarkets, wholesalers and retailers. All Eurodon’s products have quality certificates that are necessary for exporting products abroad. But the company plans to start deliveries only after the new production facilities begin operating and the production capacity increases. Until then the company will be present only on the Russian market. Eurodon successfully completed the certification of food safety management standard ISO 22000. The products of the INDOLINA brand received top awards for excellent quality, high consumer properties and environmental safety in international exhibitions such as “PRODEXPO” and “Golden Autumn”, and secured victory in contest programs like “Green products” and “100 best goods of Russia”.
