"Danubius" presented new mill worth 4.5m EUR

Novi Sad-based flour and pasta manufacturer "Danubius", which operates within "Delta holding", announced today (July 16, 2009) that it had invested 4.5m EUR in new mill that can process 300 tons of wheat per day.

- The mill is of the latest generation in the region and it is completely computerized. It is controlled by one man, although it has seven floors – the Director General of “Danubius”, Milorad Sredanović, said at the press conference in Novi Sad.

According to his words, the mill guarantees high level of sanitary protection in wheat processing, it enables sterilization of flour and elimination of dirt, larva and insects from flour.

- The mill, which has been bought from Swiss "Puehler", is environment-friendly and energy-efficient because it needs only 35 kWh to process one ton of wheat, which is half of the energy that was needed before - said Sredanović.

The plan is that 100,000 tons of wheat be processed in that mill in 2009.

He announced that “Danubius” should buy new machine worth 550,000 EUR by the end of the year. That machine will be mixing flour in order for different types of flour to be obtained.

- Procurement of two new pasta production lines worth 5m EUR and 1.5m EUR worth of loading platform, which can load or unload 1,000 tons of wheat in two hours, is in the pipeline, and new kiln with the capacity of 60 tons per hour, in which 550,000 EUR has been invested, should also be installed soon – said Sredanović.

He said that "Danubius", which had 116 workers, would require about 70,000 tons of wheat in 2009, and the stocks amounted to 25,000 tons at the moment.

Sredanovic added that the price of flour would not be decreased in 2009 although wheat was almost two times cheaper than in 2008, and he said that the wholesale price of flour ranged between 15 and 18 RSD per kilogram.

- The new mill will enable larger export – said Sredanović and added that "Danubius" was exporting its products to Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Bulgaria and Russia, and that the value of export in the first six months of year 2009 reached amount of 300,000 EUR.

As he pointed out, the main export market of "Danubius" can become Moscow whose annual consumption of pasta amounts to 100,000 tons, that is, four times more than overall annual consumption of pasta in Serbia.

He reminded that "Delta agrar" had invested over 6m EUR in "Danubius" since it had bought it in 2006, while the sales contract obliged “Delta Agrar” to invest 6.7m EUR within the first five years.