UKRAINE – Lantmännen Axa, a leading producer of breakfast cereals in Ukraine that is owned by Sweden’s largest agribusiness cooperative, Lantmännen, has secured a €3 million (US$3.34 million) credit facility to expand it breakfast cereals business.
The financing agreement was facilitated by The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and supported by Japan-EBRD Cooperation Fund to ensure the cereal producer secures financial stability and get through the economic disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The funding will allow Lantmännen Axa to implement an investment programme to diversify its product range, which currently includes muesli, granola and cereal bars, to introduce energy efficiency measures and eventually to expand production.
While EBRD remains one of the leading institutional investors in Ukraine having committed almost €15 billion in over 466 projects in the country, the new financing deal is the Bank’s second transaction with Lantmännen since 2018.
Lantmännen recently reached a partnership agreement with three other key Swedish organizations within agriculture sector; Hushållningssällskapet, LRF and Växa Sverige to create a common agri data platform for increased profitability, sustainability and innovation.
The companies launched Lantbrukets Dataplattform, to empower digital development within agriculture sector. The platform aims to develop the societally important food sector and to increase Swedish food production by strengthening farm level digital capabilities.
“The platform will contribute to making Swedish agriculture more profitable and sustainable. By enabling information from different data sources to be used, this can increase productivity on farms, while at the same time, the use of production means can be made more efficient,” said Anna Karin Hatt, CEO of LRF.
The goals for the platform include: to contribute to the development of digital solutions for profitability and sustainability at farm level, establish an attractive platform for the companies and organizations that want to boost the competitiveness of Swedish farmers via digital solutions and increase the robustness of the food value chain.
The companies further seek to create better opportunities for innovation via a platform that enables data driven Swedish research and development, strengthen the farmers’ understanding of their data ownership and give them better control over the data that are generated in their enterprise while at the same time stimulating data sharing and contribute to farmers gaining their share of the value that is created via the sharing of farming data.
