Stronger expansion was hindered by difficulties in collecting large quantities of the required byproducts since Lithuania’s processors were rather small and by the fact that Lithuania had not yet ratified an agreement with China and could not ship products to that country although the prices there exceeded the prices in Vietnam by up to 20 percent, the daily quotes Virginijus Slakaitis, the company’s board member and co-owner, as saying.
According to his estimations, sales in Asia would comprise up to 10 percent of the company’s turnover.
Lithuanian poultry breeders were interested in Southeast Asian market in particular as some of the byproducts, which were utilized in Lithuania or sold cheaply for fodder production, were used for food there, Vytautas Tevelis, the head of the Lithuanian Poultry Association, told the daily.
Vestey Foods Baltics, which posted sales of 40 million litas (EUR 11.6m) for 2012, employs a workforce of 16.