December 20, 2012

Russia's Miratog to improve high quality beef output

Russia's meat producer, Miratog, is planning to increase high-quality marbled beef production by investing an addition US$770 million in its beef supply chain.

The company, which invested US$682 million in the project last year, has asked for US$617 million in subsidies from the federal government, with the request currently under consideration by the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Arkady Dvorkovich. It predicted the investment would enable it to increase beef production to 124,000 tonnes per year, meaning that it would occupy 5% of the Russian beef market.

Miratorg spokesperson Dmitry Lgovski said the project was promising: "In Russia, the culture of beef consumption is quite poor compared with pork, for example. So the beef market is still not saturated," he explained.

"The issue of funding will depend on the interest and support from the government... the position of the Ministry of Agriculture is still not fully clear for us."

However, the new project has attracted criticism from the National Meat Union.

Head of the union, Mushegh Mamikonian, said that production of expensive marbled beef was not a socially significant project, and therefore the state should not give money to support it.