ASTARTA preserves leadership position on the Ukrainian sugar

In 2019 ASTARTA preserved leadership position on the local sugar market. Sugar plants of the Company secured 22% share of total sugar production in Ukraine. In 2019 our plants processed over 1.9 mln tonnes of sugar beet and produced 301,5 thousand tonnes of sugar. 95.5% of sugar produced was top-quality sugar (compared to 86% in 2018). In particular, share of extra quality sugar increased by 37% y-o-y to 75.6 thousand tonnes.

This season ASTARTA focused on implementatoin of Lean practices in order to improve effiency of different business operations. Bespoke system for the efficiency improvement (Lean-based), provided for the visible results in cost and resources savings. In particular, the sugar plants of ASTARTA managed to improve the sugar production index (industry-wide ratio) from 83.75% in 2018 to 85.05%, being the highest in the industry (the average index in Ukraine in 2019 was 83.57%).

«In 2019 our production units applied direct logistic model which imply shipments of sugar beet from fields to plants in order to minimize the storage time and sugar beet losses as well as to ensure high quality of raw materials and produce. We also improved the level of efficiency on our sugar plants: gas consumption reduced by 3.7% y-o-y to 22,58 cub.m per ton of sugar beet processed, water consumption was cut by 4% y-o-y to 0,82 cub.m per ton of sugar beet», – said Valery Sokolenko, Executive Director of ASTARTA . «In general, we see that the sugar market comes to a balance, giving positive prospects for the future», – he added.