According to a press release issued by the company, the AGRICOLA Group of companies recorded in the first 6 months of the year a total turnover of approximately 567.651 million lei (approximately 115 million eur0), 13% more than the first part of the previous year.

The poultry meat sales of the AGRICOLA company slightly exceeded 25,000 tons in volume, with 8.68% more compared to the similar period of 2022, and the turnover recorded by Agricola Internaţional SA Bacău in the first semester of 2023 recorded 11.8% growth.

"The performance achieved by Agricola in 2022 was mainly due to the fact that we managed to have a price positioning closer to our main competitors.

On the other hand, the investments of over 20 million euros made in the poultry slaughterhouse for modernization gave us the possibility to increase the capacity from 8,000 heads per hour to 13,500 heads per hour, but also to create products with high added value .

Combined, these two elements led to an economic result that creates the prospect of a good future for the company. The results of the first 6 months of 2023 are in line with what we have budgeted for all business lines.

Our strategy of the last ten years of growth and differentiation is working and getting stronger year after year. It has already been 14-15 years since we have been on an upward trend and we are sure that we will succeed this year as well. Concretely, until this moment, the average growth rate at group level from a value perspective is up to 10%", said Grigore Horoi, president of AGRICOLA.

In the sausage category (obtained at Salbac SA), their sales, in value, are similar to those achieved in the first part of 2022, in the conditions of a 4% decrease in volumes in the raw-dried salami category and a 14% increase in volumes of cooked smoked sausages.

"The sausage division, especially the dry-cured segment is feeling the effect of declining purchasing power and inflation. Consumers have a smaller shopping budget and then a good part of them turn to cheaper products, sacrificing the quality standards they were used to, or reducing the volume of purchases", Grigore Horoi appreciates.

Europrod SA, the company from the Agricola Group of companies that sells semi-prepared and ready-meal products, recorded in 2023, compared to the first semester of the previous year, increases in the volumes sold by 5.6%.

"This category is growing at a healthy pace, it even performs very well, because the ready-meals type products respond to clear needs - saving time, mainly. 27% of the production goes to export and we are seriously considering the purchase of a new production line for this category", stated the president of AGRICOLA.

In the consumption of eggs, produced at Avicola Lumina Constanța, there was an increase in sales in 2023 of 11%, given that 34 million eggs were sold in the first half of the year.

"This year, however, we are allocating 17 million euros for investments in extremely diverse areas. We are talking about an incubation station, an incineration station, a sewage treatment plant, three photovoltaic parks, a new thermal power plant. We do not target new categories, but there are products where the demand is on an upward trend and then it is natural to invest in production capacities.

If for our differentiating products, such as the Happy Chicken, the Farmer's Chicken and the Rooster of the Forest, we have not necessarily planned increases, due to the depreciation of people's purchasing power, this year we will support from a strategic and communication point of view, especially the BRAVITO range, launched in 2022, dedicated to children and families with children, a range in which we find high-quality assortments from each category of Agricola products.

I expect 2023 to be in line with 2022, of course unless there are changes in the market landscape that distort things like the Black Sea Corridor for grains, proximity warfare and its effects, administrative measures to control prices, fiscal measures to manage the deficit budget, etc. – all these can influence the evolution of our businesses, but we remain optimistic and our objective is to maintain the upward trend. In the given context, an increase of more than 10% per total business will not be feasible, but we will certainly end 2023 with a surplus," said Grigore Horoi.