Tnuva, 150 new employees by yearend

Tnuva Romania, the newest company to enter onto the domestic market of dairy products, has hired 150 people to begin working at its plant in Popesti-Leordeni and plans to double the number of employees by the end of this year, according to Sagit Tzur Lahav, vice-president and marketing officer with Tnuva Romania.
“We’ve found people who are well trained in the dairy industry, as well as other food industry workers who can be easily trained to work for us,” stated Sagit Tzur Lahav. According to Tzur the positions of CEO, marketing officer, financial officer and sales officer have all been filled by Israel-born citizens, while the rest of the management team and the remainder of personnel are Romanian.
Tnuva has ongoing investments worth 55 million euros in the construction of a dairy produce plant and farm in Popesti-Leordeni, located close to Bucharest, with 35% of the project being financed by the EBRD. Tnuva Romania, the first investment made by the largest dairy firm in Israel outside their local market, will sell fresh dairy products, with the company representative announcing the plant to begin production in the near future.
The company will have its own national distribution network, with three distribution centres in Bucharest, Cluj and Timisoara, according to Sagit Tzur Lahav.
“The market appears to be growing steadily, but this is only if we take into account the consumption of industrialised dairy products, however there is a significant part of the population consuming dairy products in the countryside, which is not included in the statistics.
“Living standards are rapidly improving and the demand for dairy products is changing, offering dairy producers further opportunities to develop,” stated Sagit Tzur Lahav.
The Tnuva representative also said that despite the company’s present focus on developing its business in Romania, it might consider exporting in the future.
The Israeli group owns two subsidiaries in Romania – TRD-Tnuva Romanian Dairies and TRM-Tnuva Romanian Milk, with the first focussing on sales and production, whilst the latter will include a cow farm located in Adunatii Copaceni, close to Bucharest. The cow farm will provide one third of the raw material required for production, while the remainder will be purchased from local farmers.
According to the previous statements made by the company representatives, the plant will have an annual production capacity of 30 million litres and will reach a maximum capacity of 60 million litres per year, the equivalent of 200,000 litres per day, which would generate sales worth 68 million euros.
Tnuva is the first foreign firm to make a greenfield investment in a dairy production plant.
The dairy products market is expected to exceed 1 billion euros within the next 3-4 years.