Gyermelyi Zrt handed over a new egg production facility

By: STA Date: 2023. 04. 20. 10:30

On Thursday, the company handed over an egg production unit created with an investment of 1.4 billion forints in Máriahalm, thus creating the largest egg production plant in the country.

The handover of the Gyermelyi Zrt. egg production plant (Photo: István Fekete)

Minister of Agriculture István Nagy stated at an event held in Gyermely before the handover of the facility: “the development of agriculture is a commandment of the times. The profitability of Hungarian farmers, who are on the podium in terms of the product produced per hectare, is 53 percent of the European average”. He added that the modernization of agriculture is essential, and fortunately there is a huge demand for this from the players in agriculture. The developments are aimed at enabling the sector to produce as much added value as possible. The minister said that the plans for the next period include HUF 2,485 billion in direct and sectoral agricultural subsidies and HUF 2,891 billion in rural development resources. Since the rural development resources represent a 50 percent support intensity, investment development worth HUF 5-6 thousand billion will start in Hungarian agriculture in the next three years – added István Nagy.

The development cost 1.4 billion

Csaba Réthy, the managing director of Gyermelyi Tojás Kft., said that until now two sheds with a capacity of 100,000 each were operating at the Máriahalm location, the new facility created with the current expansion is capable of accommodating 140,000 laying hens. The company previously cared for a total of 540,000 laying hens, with the development increasing their number to 680,000. According to the plans, the annual egg production will increase from 140 million to 170 million pieces, half of which will be sold as shell eggs, and the rest will be used as fresh eggs in the company’s own pasta factory, up to 700,000 pieces per day. The total value of the investment was 1.4 billion forints, of which 700 million forints came from Hungarian state tender funds – the company wrote in its press release reporting on the expansion of the egg production farm. On Gyermelyi Zrt.’s farms, day-old chicks are raised using their own feed to become pullets and then to laying hens, so that a safe product path is realized from the beginning in the case of eggs as well. Half of the high-quality feed produced in the feed factory goes to the own farms, and the remaining amount is sold to external partners. The crop production sector, which forms the basis of flour production, farms 8,200 hectares and brings together 250 producers. The group of companies propagates high-content seed bred by the Martonvásár Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and then distributes it to the farmers participating in the production community.

The group’s pasta factory is one of the largest and most modern plants in Central and Eastern Europe. Its nominal capacity reaches 70,000 tons per year. In 2022, the plant produced nearly 42,000 tons of pasta, more than 35 percent of which was sold abroad.

Gyermelyi Zrt. achieved a consolidated sales revenue of nearly HUF 29 billion in 2020 and HUF 27 billion in 2021. The company’s profit after tax amounted to HUF 1.6 billion in 2020 and HUF 1.3 billion in 2021. In the past five years, the company group spent more than HUF 22 billion on investments, and in 2022 alone, more than HUF 6.6 billion was earmarked for development. The company directly employs almost 600 people, and the production integration they organize means a secure livelihood for thousands of families.

MTI