The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has granted a €90m loan to fund Lantmännen Group’s expansion plans in Romania.
An agricultural co-op owned by 18,000 Swedish farmers, Lantmännen Group has operations in more than 20 countries, employing over 10,000 people.
The EBRD funding will be used to build a state-of-the-art bakery in Bucharest for Lantmännen Unibake Romania, a subsidiary of the co-op’s bakery division. The site will serve as a central production hub supplying central and southeast European countries.
The facility will meet the EBRD’s Green Economy Transition building requirements. Once completed, it will be one of the largest bakery operations within Lantmännen Unibake.
“It will unlock the export potential of bakery products in Romania, one of Europe’s largest wheat exporters, and support the modernisation of the bakery sector in the country,” the EBRD said in a statement.
Romania is the fourth largest wheat producer in the EU, with a crop of 9.18 million tons of wheat harvested from 2.1 million hectares in 2022.
The co-op said it will also run a vocational training programme for young people to help them gain the skills they need to work in the bakery industry.
This is not the first investment made by Lantmännen in Romania: the group estimates it has invested €10.5bn through 515 projects in the country.
