Moscow, February 10, 2004 — Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods OJSC (NYSE: WBD) today announced the installation of a form, fill and seal line for the bottling of dietetic dairy products in plastic bottles (PAND) at Timashevsk Dairy Plant OJSC, the Company’s leading plant in Southern Russia. The total investment in the project was US$6.6 million.
A bottle blow-moulder produced by Urola (Spain) and a filler made by Corniani (Italy) were installed at Timashevsk. The new line allows the bottling of dietetic dairy products in 0.9 liter and 0.475 liter bottles using ESL clean production technology. The production capacity of this bottle blow-moulding and filling line is 99.3 tons per day. This equipment can increase the shelf life of fermented milk products for up to 3 weeks.
The installation of this equipment allows Wimm-Bill-Dann to widen substantially the range of dairy products produced at the plant. The Company plans to use this line to produce dairy products such as kefir, ryazhenka and drinking yogurt under the Chudo, Domik v Derevne, Bio-Max and Neo brands.
These investments were undertaken as part of an ongoing program to modernize Wimm-Bill-Dann’s production base across its operations. The current project is aimed at maintaining the high quality of the company’s products and enhancing operating efficiencies through the introduction of high technology to dairy production.
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