A modern and vertically integrated business, Chirina LLC, has been granted a loan of EUR4.0 million (US$4.5 million) by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBDR). The firm will use the loan to expand its own production, and begin exports of poultry meat to neighboring countries. Tbilisi-based Chirina plans a further 14 state-of-the-art broiler houses.
Under the Bank’s Finance and Technology Transfer Centre for Climate Change (FINTECC) program, Chirina will receive a further EUR99,000 grant so that modern energy management systems can be included in the new buildings.
To accelerate the adoption of modern techniques in grain production, and raise crop yields and quality, Chirina plans a training program for at least 100 of its local growers within its supply chain.
“The EBRD is pleased to support Chirina’s expansion,” said Catarina Bjorlin Hansen, EBRD regional director for Caucasus. “This project will have a strong demonstration effect in terms of the development of the value-chain in agribusiness sector in Georgia, at the same time enhancement of import substitution, increase of food safety standards as well as cross-border trading.”
Chirina LLC was founded by local businessman Revaz Vashakidze, according to the EBRD, as a greenfield project.
Since 2010, Chirina LLC has expanded and developed to become a vertically integrated company, and one of the largest agricultural groups and the leading food producer in Georgia, according to the firm’s own website. Its poultry products include chicken meat, chicken sausages, and hatching eggs, as well as having its own veterinary laboratory accredited to ISO standards. HACCP principles cover its production chain, and its products are certified under Germany’s TUV SUD system.
From its own corn and wheat, the firm produces its own feed, and it has grain-drying facilities, as well as waste treatment and rendering capabilities. In addition, Chirina produces apples and pears on a commercial scale, and has fruit sorting and storage facilities.
Over the last few years, the firm has doubled domestic poultry production, according to the EBRD, substituting low quality imports of frozen chicken with the high quality locally produced products by operating the highest food safety practices.
This is by no means the first agri-food project supported by EBRD. In 2017, it agreed loans with two Ukrainian poultry companies — MHP and Dniprovs’kyi Ptahocombinat — for the installation of biomass boilers. Using poultry litter and wastes as fuel, the boilers aimed to improve the companies’ financial performance and reduce their environmental impact.
International agency supports Georgia’s smaller producers
A partnership between Georgia (formerly the Republic of Georgia) and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been developing since 1995 with the mutually agreed aims to improve rural livelihoods, to increase the productivity and competitiveness of smallholder farmers, and to address climate change.
Among the recent developments reported by FAO are the construction of new facilities for smoking ham and for pig production in two of the country’s rural regions as part of the Organization’s support for Georgia’s strategy for agricultural development.
According to the statistics arm of FAO, FAOstat, Georgia produced a little over 8,500 metric tons (mt) of chicken meat and 14,000mt pig meat in 2013, the most recent year for which figures have been published.
Georgia’s population was 3.71 million in the last official census in 2014.
