Solar Panel Park Installed at Food Processing Plant

Szarvas-based Gallicoop Turkey Processing Co. Ltd. will be constructing a 1.2 megawatt solar panel park from an investment of HUF 582 million (EUR 1.65 million).

HUF 282 million, that is, close to half of the amount invested will be provided from public funds by the Hungarian government.

The project will enable the company to save HUF 34-40 million (EUR 100-115,000) annually in electricity costs, in addition to which it will be procuring machinery with which it hopes to increase the annual production of its breaded products to ten thousand tons”, the company’s President and CEO István Erdélyi told the press.

Gallicoop Zrt., which boasts a 30-year history, is Hungary’s largest closed-system turkey meat producing interaction, producing 8,000 tons of meat products and 8,000 tons of breaded products-a-year, and processing an annual 40,000 tons of turkey. Since 1994, the company has spent over HUF 16 billion (currently EUR 45.4 million) on development, including on the expansion of its breading plant, the construction of cold storage units and incubators, and the establishment of a packaging center with an investment of HUF 1.7 billion (EUR 4.83 million). The company provides a living to over two thousand employees over the whole integration”, he continued.

“In addition to domestic sales, the company also exports an annual HUF 13 billion (EUR 36.9 million) in products to practically every part of Europe, as well as to Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. In 2019, the company realized HUF 35.9 billion (EUR 102 million) in turnover and after-tax profits of HUF 1.9 billion (EUR 5.4 million)”, the CEO told reporters. He added that export turnover has fallen drastically as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but the company hopes its usual markets will begin to pick up again from the second half of July.

At the event to launch the latest investment project, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó called Gallicoop Turkey Processing Co. Ltd. one of the flagships of the Hungarian food industry, boasting 5.5% of all the poultry (and 40% of all turkeys) slaughtered in Hungary. The Minister pointed out that Hungary is the world’s tenth largest exporter of poultry, adding that production value within the food industry, which provides jobs for 142,000 people, increased by 15% during the first six months of the year.