Tuesday, August 11 2015 16:27

Spayka, the largest international freight forwarding company in Armenia, engaged also in procurement of agricultural products and manufacture of canned food, will open a new fresh fruit and vegetable processing enterprise in September. 

Talking to ArmInfo, Karen Baghdasaryan, the head of the Project Management Division at Spayka company, said the new enterprises will be fitted with modern Italian equipment and will become the biggest in the country. The capacity of the enterprise will be about 40 million items per year: juices, canned food for export to Russia. The company has already signed a framework agreement with a number of big distributing and retail networks in Russia. 

Launching activity as a freight forwarding company in 2001,  Spayka LLC is now the biggest exporter of agricultural products from Armenia and the only exporter of radish.  Baghdasaryan said they plan to export 9,000 tons of radishes annually. "A few years ago, the company leadership arrived at a conclusion that export of stone fruits (apricots, cherry, peach) and root crops do not give the company any competitive advantages. Greenhouse LLC decided to invest in area under glass," the company's representative said.  Earlier on March 21 2015, an up-to-date energy-efficient greenhouse complex of the Greenhouse LLC was opened in Ararat region.  VTB Bank (Armenia) jointly with Ameriabank funded the construction. The general partner for procurement of the production is Spayka Company.  The greenhouse occupying an area of 30ha is designed for production of radish mainly. Baghdasaryan said radish is successfully exported to Europe. The company works to launch export to Iran too. 

As to the general trends of export of agricultural products, Baghdasaryan said the season for the exporter- companies started in June and comparing to last year, the yield has increased 10-15-fold. Last time such high yield and export indicator were registered in 2009. 

This year, the company exported about 20,000 tons of stone fruits, with Spayka accounting for 15% of total. "Spayka accounts for over 65% of total export of fresh fruits and vegetables in the market. In 2013, the company exported over 16,000 tons, in 2014 - about 20,000 tons, and in 2015 up to 40,000 tons. The main groups of products are stone fruits (apricot, peach, nectarine, cherry), grapes, apples, pears, mushrooms, greens, root crops (cabbages, potato, onion, carrot) and vegetables (pepper, tomato, cucumber, radish). We are not a link between the farmers and final consumers, we are direct consumers for farmers - we procure, process and export," Baghdasaryan said.  In his words, they export Armenian fruits and vegetables mainly to CIS (99.9%) and only 1% to Europe. "There is so far a problem with the quality certificate Global Gap required by European food chains. As to the Russian market, we have been working in the given direction for a long time already and demand there always exceeds supply," he said.  "Earlier more than 60%-70% of our freight forwarding services were provided to third parties, this year we export our own production. Meantime, 100% of the import services are provided to third parties. Our car fleet is increasing every year by 20%-30% and we have 115 vehicles now," the company's representative said.  

In 2010, Spayka launched production of packaging boxes and pallets from polystyrene foam that are very presentable, comply with all international standards and health requirements and are made by cutting edge German technology. The company is exporting fresh refrigerated fish from Armenia. In 2011, the company launched a new production line - Araratfood and Araratfruit canned products. Spayka Company plans more investments projects in greenhouse technologies.