PepsiCo opens 1 billion zloty snack plant in Poland

American food and drink giant PepsiCo has opened a new 1 billion zloty (€220 million) snack plant in the southwestern Polish village of Święte. The facility, which will produce Lay’s crisps among other brands, is the firm’s fifth plant in Poland and its biggest investment so far in the country.

It is also the company’s first facility in the European Union designed to measure CO2 emissions, with the aim of achieving net zero emissions by 2035.

“This is excellent evidence that state-of-the-art greenfield projects can be implemented in Poland,” said Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, during the opening ceremony.

PepsiCo currently works with 70 Polish agricultural producers and processes 200,000 tonnes of potatoes a year in Poland. It is now looking to expand its network of farmers to supply potatoes and maize for the snacks. By 2025, the new plant will buy 60,000 tonnes of potatoes per year and, by 2027, 30,000 tonnes of maize.

The snacks produced in the plant, which will eventually employ 600 people, will be distributed to 20 countries, in particular to neighbouring Germany.

“We are working with Polish farmers developing the production of potatoes processed into Lay’s crisps,” said Silviu Popovici, head of PepsiCo’s operations in Europe.

Popovici added that the facility was established in Poland in part because “PepsiCo has very good cooperation with the [Polish] government”, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP). The company, which opened its first facility in Poland 30 years ago, currently employs more than 3,000 people in the country.

Among the features of the new factory designed to help it reduce its environmental impact are solar panels, wastewater sub-treatment plants, electric car charging points, and tanks to collect rainwater, which is treated and used in the factory.

The American ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski, who also was present at the opening ceremony, noted that “there is strong interest from US investors in investing in Poland”.

“Whenever American companies ask me what to expect in Poland, I always emphasise that they are people who are very hardworking and very loyal,” said Brzezinski.

A number of large US firms have announced major investments in Poland in recent years, including Visa, Google and Microsoft. German car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz and Chinese-owned Volvo are also building new Polish facilities. Poland will also host the first European kimchi factory of South Korea’s Daesang Corporation.

During yesterday’s opening ceremony, Morawiecki noted that foreign investment in 2021-2022 in Poland reached a “record-breaking amount” of 110 billion zloty.

Main image credit: Prime Minister’s Chancellery (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.