Mlekovita eyes-up ailing Poznan dairy as sector consolidation looms

The Mlekovita dairy is planning to increase its market share and seek new ac quisitions. It is highly probable that it would takeover the Mleczarnia Pozn an - Spoldzielnia dairy, which has deep financial problems. The Mlekovita gr oup consists of four plants, which bought and processed over 466 million lit ers of milk in 2002. Its net profit reached zl. 1.7 million on revenues of z l. 666.4 million, which is well below the 2001 figures of zl. 5.7 million an d zl. 716 million respectively. The main reason for the slump was the drop i n product prices and low profitability of exports which account for 25% of M lekovita's sales. Due to this, "Consolidation and production concentration i s inevitable," said Zygmunt Smolenski of the Institute of Agricultural and F ood Economics (IERiGZ). (Rzeczpospolita, p. B5) M.M.