Itambé invests in São Paulo unit
Valor Econômico 05/26/2009
Amid the fall in the earnings and the production sold, Itambé invests in the change of its profile. The Central Cooperative of Rural Producers of Minas Gerais should set up, until the end of the year, an industry for the processing of 300 thousand daily liters of UHT milk in Brodósqui, in the region of Ribeirão Preto, in the northeast of São Paulo. R$ 20 million (US$ 9.5 million) will be invested with two purposes: to mark the geographic expansion of Itambé, currently operating in Minas Gerais and Goiás and to increase in fluid milk, which today has little relevance in the company earnings. Today, Itambé has a processing capacity of 5 million liters of milk a day, but it currently works with 35% of idle capacity.
The plant in the State of São Paulo results from the association, since yesterday, of Conai to the Central Cooperative of Rural Producers of Minas Gerais in the complex of the cooperatives that integrate Itambé. Conai, or the National Agricultural Cooperative (Cooperativa Nacional Agroindustrial, in Portuguese), from Ribeirão Preto, formed by 500 producers, at first, used to supply Nilza, which is in process of judicial recovery. Itambé currently gathers 8.5 thousand producers. According to the CEO of Itambé, Jaques Gontijo, the tax issue and the circumstances of the market were vital to enter the market of fluid milk in São Paulo.