RUSSIA: Tetra Pak opens plant in Moscow

Swedish-based packaging giant Tetra Pak has opened its new converting plant in Lobnya in the Moscow region.

With a planned capacity of 4bn packages per year, the new plant will be the largest plant producing packaging material for liquid food products in Russia and Eastern Europe, the company said late last week.

Tetra Pak has invested more than EUR100m (US$138m) in developing the plant, representing the company's largest investment in Russia to date. 

"The launch of the new plant demonstrates our commitment to helping customers grow their dairy and beverage industry with our unique offering of integrated processing and packaging systems for liquid food products," said Igor Akimov, president of Tetra Pak Russia. "The decision to invest in new production facilities is based on the dynamic growth of the Russian dairy and JNSD (juices, nectars, still drinks) market."

Some 75% of the new plant's capacity will be devoted to producing aseptic packaging to meet Russia's growing demand for long-life products. The UHT-milk market in Russia grew by 16% in 2006, the company noted, twice as fast as the packaged milk market as a whole.

Tetra Pak has been operating in Russia for nearly 50 years. Headquartered in Moscow, Tetra Pak Russia has offices in St Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar and Yekaterinburg and employs more than 700 people.