TODAY.AZ / Business

Ucar Agro contributing to Azerbaijan’s economic development

05 November 2014 [12:10] - TODAY.AZ

/AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

While opening its first poultry plant in central Azerbaijani region of Ujar in 2012, Ucar Agro LLC had an ambitious target of achieving the consumers' satisfaction through offering high quality products on the domestic market.

The company was the first agrarian project of the GARANT Holding, which invested about $18 million to establish its slaughtering department.

Ucar Agro is the largest facility of its kind in the South Caucasus region and one of the ten similar facilities in CIS area. It is recognized as one of the most modern and unique agrarian complexes not only in Azerbaijan, but also in the whole South Caucasus.

Within a short period of time, Ucar Agro succeeded to gain the consumer trust through its products branded Marcan.

Marcan Village Chicken, Marcan Premium and Marcan Broiler are the main products which the company has been presenting to the domestic markets since March, 2014.

The facility is equipped with the most modern processing and production technologies made in Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Turkey and etc. Ucar Agro's poultry plant serves the GARANT Holding's strategy to provide the local markets with high-quality poultry products and meet the increasing consumer demands.

Almost all production and processing operations are automated and computerized in this huge complex. Human labor is supported only in those processes where it is necessary. About 6,000 chickens are slaughtered per hour and 16,000 chickens are packaged per day in the plant. Now it plans to increase the daily production to nearly 30,000-35,000 chickens in future. The plant is able to produce about 22,000 tons of poultry products annually.

The company's General Director Rufat Mammadzade said they took concrete steps to increase Ucar Agro's competitiveness in the local markets. "We are proud to say our company is using the contemporary cooling and packaging systems for the first time in Azerbaijan. We also pioneered to offer the village chickens in hygienic and safe packages. High-quality and customer satisfaction comprise the key goals of Ucar Agro," he said.

Ucar Agro is the first and only company in Azerbaijan to apply the modern air chilling system in its production process. The unique system cools the chickens' bodies separately and in high hygienic conditions down to +2 celsius, reducing the contamination risk to zero and keeping the useful natural extracts in the chicken's body. The system is able to cool about 4,000 chickens per hour. The modern chilling system is followed by state of the art packaging technology which is also new in Azerbaijan. Ucar Agro uses a modern British-made vacuum packaging system to keep the bacterial contamination at the lowest level, as well as save the vitamins and minerals in chicken meat.

Mammadzade noted that Ucar Agro meets the requirements of the necessary international standards. "Our company meets the requirements of Halal Standards. There is a special accommodation for daily prayers within the plant and the slaughter process is carried out by only prayer employees. Ucar Agro's activities also conform with ISO 22000 and MS 1500-2009 standards," he noted. ISO 22000 is a standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization dealing with food safety. Meanwhile, the Halal Standard demands the production to obey Islamic rules, as defined in the Koran.

Ucar Agro's Head Veterinary Rustam Gasimov said the company had a well-provided laboratory that allows controlling the complete production process from A to Z. "Laboratory is the most important part of our plant. Complete control of the production process from the egg to the packaged chicken is the key task of the lab. Modern equipment and skilled personnel allow us to be confident of our products' quality and hygienic safety," he noted.

Ucar Agro is currently serving only in the domestic markets. The company distributes Marcan chickens in Baku and Sumgait cities, as well as in Ucar, Zardab, Goycay and Kurdamir regions. The average monthly sales are calculated over 250 tons. Export of the products is not in today's agenda, but it is planned to be realized in near future with Russia as the first destination for export operations.

The company's Sales and Marketing Director Samir Eyyubov said customer satisfaction was extremely important for Ucar Agro. "We attach great attention to the storage conditions of our products at the sale places. We even provide those stores with special fridges trying to help them preserve the products' nutritional values," he noted.

Ucar Agro follows the requirements of environmental safety, preventing release of any waste matter into environment. A separate rendering workshop connected to the main plant functions to turn the poultry wastes into fodder for livestock.

Labor safety is strictly followed in every corner of the plant. No worker is allowed to start working without necessary accessories. The company's management thoroughly oversees the signing of labor contracts with workers. "No contract" means "no job" at Ucar Agro's facilities.

Ucar Agro employs about 208 workers in the poultry plant and additional 150 employees in its other facilities engaged in breeding, feeding and incubation processes. The company prefers the local workers and specialists, and almost all employees are from Ucar region. The whole personnel were trained in relevant fields and participated in the courses arranged by the specialists invited from abroad. The company's management said the preference for local workers were one of the key priorities since Ucar Agro's establishment.

Private fodder production plant of Ucar Agro is currently being built next to the poultry plant and will be ready by the end of this year's first half. Moreover, the company will inaugurate its breeding plant very soon.

GARANT Holding is engaged in large variety of activities covering construction, telecommunication, insurance, recreation, as well as real estate, agriculture, travel and more other fields. It has proved itself as one of the leading structures in Azerbaijan's economy throughout its nine years of a versatile activity. The company applies the latest technological advancements in its facilities in the country's different zones and gives a sustainable backing to economic progress and healthy involvement in competitiveness.

Ucar Agro is just a part of GARANT Holding's contributions to Azerbaijan's universal progress and State Program on Socio-Economic Development of Regions. The holding's successful and dynamic activities in various economic, social and business fields will further back the country's general development. The founder of the holding Anar Mammadov said: "I'm sure that our successes in Azerbaijan's economic and social life will encourage our people to join us, be a part of these successes and make their dreams come true."

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