The largest producer of shell eggs and dry egg products in Ukraine, Avangard has completed the construction of the first stage of facilities at its Avis egg production complex for laying hens.

The official opening ceremony of the Complex took place on 7 July. It was attended by the representatives of municipalities of Khmelnitsky region, Nataliya Vasylyuk (CEO of the Company), the representatives of investors and investment funds.

Ms Vasylyuk said: "This event marks a major milestone in the company's history and I am delighted that construction has been completed on time, which is what we promised investors at the time of our IPO in 2010. I am also pleased to announce that the Company's management made a decision to increase capacities of Avis, in particular the capacity of the site for rearing young laying hens and site for laying hens will be increased from 1.5 million to 2.5 million and from three million to five million birds, respectively. The capacity of the biogas unit will be expanded from 9.74mW to 20.4mW of electric power per hour and from 11mW to 22mW of heat power per hour."

Avis is a large-scale investment project that is being built in accordance with the best and most modern construction and agricultural practices, utilising state of the art energy saving technologies. The Complex is designed to be labour-efficient, with a high level of automation across all production processes. The equipment is provided by leading suppliers, including Andritz Feed & Biofuel A/S (Denmark), Big Dutchman International GmbH (Germany), CimBria Unigrain A/S (Denmark), Officine Facco Spa (Italy), Moba B.V. (the Netherlands) and Stulz H+E GR PPE (Germany).

Construction of the Chornobaivske production complex is also progressing well, says the company.