Bonduelle Vegetable Canning Plant, Krasnodar, Russia

Bonduelle SCA, a leading manufacturer of canned, frozen and fresh vegetables in Europe, is constructing a new vegetable processing and canning plant in Krasnador, 70km from the Kuban province capital, Timashevsk. The company has been active in Russia for nine years as its Russian subsidiary OOO Bonagri and has become the market leader in Russia thanks to imports from its industrial sites abroad. The new facility will expand the company's presence in the area and allow them to quickly bring a new range of products to the expanding Russian market (market has grown 10% during 2003-04).

Bonduelle will initially package sweetcorn and garden peas; the company has a large support base of contract growers in Russia in addition to its own farms to provide them with the large volumes required to run a new production plant. The facility will consist of a vegetable processing and canning plant, owned and operated by Bonduelle, and an adjacent state-of-the-art can production facility, owned and operated by Crown Food France. The proximity of the two plants will greatly simplify the supply chain processes.

CAN PRODUCTION PLANT

Crown Food Europe will build and outfit the can production plant to produce 400g sweetcorn and garden pea cans of 83mm diameter with fully decorated can ends and the 'Super End' pull tab opening system. The tinplate for the can production will be supplied by Crown Hellas in Greece. Crown Cork Holdings will supply and install the can manufacturing equipment for the new plant.

The cans will be made as two-piece food cans and the labels will be printed by a contract printer and applied by Bonduelle in the canning facility. Two-piece food cans start out as large coils of tin-plated steel sheet. This first passes through a lubricator to prepare the material for forming. The sheet then enters the cupping press where round blanks are created by punching holes in the coil. These blanks are then drawn into cups and conveyed to a bank of bodymakers. The bodymakers redraw the cups, making them longer and smaller in diameter. After this operation, the bodymakers iron the material, decreasing its thickness, and subsequently elongate the can body.

The cans then exit the bodymakers and are fed to trimmers where the finished can height is achieved. Lubricants used for the forming process are removed in the washer. Additionally, the cans are chemically prepared to accept a lacquer to protect the external surface. The lacquer is applied to the cans, then passed through an oven to cure the coating. The cans then get taken to the inside spray machines, where they receive a protective internal coating, which is subsequently cured by the internal bake oven.

After the inside spray is cured, the top of the cans are waxed to aid in the necking and flanging process, which prepare the cans for their lids, which will be applied at a future time, after they are filled. The cans then pass through a light tester to detect any imperfections, and are then palletised for shipment.

The ends of the cans will be the crown cork 'Super End' that will be decorated as part of the Bonduelle brand (this gives the brand a distinctive look allowing it to stand out). The decorator equipment can apply up to eight colours to the can ends plus an over-varnish to protect the decoration during conveyance to the canning plant.

FINANCE

Crown Food France, a subsidiary of Crown Cork Inc, will be investing an estimated €20 million in the new can production plant. Bonduelle are investing an estimated €41 million in the vegetable processing and canning facility. Construction of the two facilities started in June 2003 and is scheduled for completion late 2004 / early 2005. In addition, Bonduelle is planning to invest a further €10 million in its raw materials base, which now occupies 515ha.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is to provide €15 million of the investment for the new processing facility (for which it will take a 35% stake in the project) with Bonduelle SCA providing the remainder (giving it a 65% stake).

The €41 million plant will be completed in two phases and eventually produce 60,000t of fresh packaged vegetables a year - mainly sweetcorn and peas. The first investment of €23 million will produce 25,000t/yr, followed by a second investment in 2008 of €18 million to achieve the full production target. The EBRD will offer political support for long-term investment by an international investor in the Russian primary agriculture sector, which to date has attracted little foreign investment.

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