Russian feed vitamins manufacturer makes first exports to Asia

Arnica is the first Russian feed vitamins manufacturer, Agroexport, a government agency facilitating agricultural export, said in a statement. The company has already established deliveries to all Russian regions and is currently mulling export sales.

Establishing export sales was the main rationale behind building the production capacities in the Russian Far East, Agroexport stated. In 2022, Arnica got the green light to sell its goods to customers in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. In addition, the company passed an international audit to get a FAMI-QS, which the company believes should further spur its export opportunities.

Meeting half of the Russian demand

In 2021, Arnica launched a production cluster, Nadezhdinskaya, for 21.1 billion roubles ($210 million) near Vladivostok. The company rolled out plans to launch the production of a broad range of feed additives in stages, including lysine monochloride, valine, tryptophan, as well as A, B, P, and D vitamins. In 2022, the company said it is aiming to manufacture 10,000 tonnes of feed additives.

In the first half of 2022, Lyudmila Tekutieva, Arnica’s general director, said that the company sought to meet nearly 50% of the demand on the Russian market in the long run and to establish exports to several Asian countries.

In May 2023, the Russian authorities approved a 246 million roubles ($3 million) grant for Arnica to expand production volumes.

Export becomes real

While in the previous years, Arnica primarily focused on the domestic market, in 2023, the company started working on realising its export opportunities.

“Today, we are registering our products in other countries and working, among other things, with the attachés of the Russian Agricultural Ministry and Agroexport. In export activities, we are only at the beginning of our journey: we have made the first deliveries of vitamin B4 to Vietnam, and we have received approval for the supply of a line of vitamins to a premix plant in Japan, but we have huge ambitions,” the company stated.

In 2022, Arnica saw its net revenue more than doubling to 3.6 billion roubles ($36 million) from 1.6 billion roubles ($16 million) in the previous year. Net profit stood at 280 million roubles ($2.8 million).