In the Kaliningrad region, cooperation covers various agricultural areas

For the past five years, support has been provided to agricultural consumer cooperatives in the Kaliningrad region. 11 such associations were able to take advantage of support in the form of subsidies and grants for the development of the material and technical base in the amount of more than 310 million rubles.

One of the most priority activities of cooperatives today is the processing of MILK and the production of dairy products. In this area, in particular, the Shangal and Kaliningradskoye Moloko cooperatives, which are based in the Chernyakhovsky urban district, work.

Shangal specializes in the production of moldy cheeses. According to the results of competitive selection, the cooperative was provided with support for a total amount of more than 16.5 million rubles. These funds were used to purchase equipment for the production and maturation of cheeses. State support allowed to increase the production of cheese up to 20 tons per month. Products are supplied to retail chains and retail outlets in the region, to Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Kaliningradskoye Moloko collects milk from private farms and sells it to processors. In 2021, the cooperative purchased more than 3 thousand tons of milk from households. In parallel, the cooperative is implementing a project to create its own processing facility for the production of cheese and butter, which successfully passed the competitive selection in 2021, and the cooperative was awarded a grant in the amount of over 13.7 million rubles. This money will be used to buy refrigeration equipment, equipment for processing milk and making cheese and butter. Currently, the cooperative is building a plant on the territory of the Chernyakhovsky industrial park and plans to launch it next year.

Another cooperative in the Chernyakhovsky district is Zagorskoye. Its activities are related to commodity processing, storage and processing of vegetables. The cooperative twice received grants totaling more than 20.6 million rubles. With their help, a wide range of equipment was purchased that allows you to collect potatoes and vegetables, ensure their safety, and then prepare them for sale, including the preparation of semi-finished products. The capacity of the plant for filling, processing and packing vegetables is 4 thousand tons per year, the capacity of one-time storage of products is 2.1 thousand tons. Products are supplied to retail chains, restaurants, hotels and budgetary institutions of the region.

Cooperation in the field of processing and marketing of berries and fruits is gaining momentum. One such example is the Sadovody cooperative in the Polesie urban district. It sells apples grown on the farms of its members. In 2021, the sales volume amounted to about 60 tons of apples. This season, Sadovody received a grant in the amount of more than 14.5 million rubles for the construction of storage facilities with a total storage capacity of over 1.3 thousand tons and its equipment for storing products, cooling them and shock freezing. In 2022, the cooperative also plans to start selling fresh and frozen currants and strawberries.
The development of the cooperative "ECO-Farmer" continues in the Polesie district. He was the first in RUSSIA to launch the production of foie gras in 2019 and now produces a wide range of products from duck MEAT. Since the beginning of 2021, the total sales amounted to about 20 tons of products. The cooperative was helped to purchase production equipment by a state grant in the amount of about 19 million rubles received in 2018.

“With the development of small businesses, since 2016, we have been paying special attention to the system of agricultural consumer cooperation, which allows us to systematically solve the issues of organizing the storage and marketing of farm products. Thanks to the grant support provided, cooperatives have developed in the areas of commodity processing and processing of fruit, berry and vegetable products, the production of dairy and meat products, drying and grain processing. The cooperatives were able to strengthen their material and technical base with modern high-performance equipment, increase the volume of products sold by almost six times, create more than two hundred new permanent jobs in rural areas, and additionally involve more than 300 participants in cooperation,” said Deputy Prime Minister of the region - Minister of Agriculture Natalya Shevtsova.