Uspensky Sakharnik: stability is the working result of each employee

The head of the biggest sugar plant talks about social responsibility in business

Every year at the beginning of October, the day of the farmhand and the processing industry is celebrated. It is a professional day for more than 16 mln. workers of this industry type. This year it was celebrated on October 10 but the next day the head of the state held a meeting concerning research and development support for agricultural-industrial development. Concerning the success in federal research and development program implementation for the agricultural development, the President stated, that "It is mostly important that the obtained results could ensure the rising of prosperity, health promotion of our citizens, improvement of the life quality in rural areas, make new employment opportunities".

Today we talk about the enterprise, which is working fruitfully on tasks created by the head of the state. It is going to be about the leading enterprise of Russian sugar industry Uspensky Sakharnik which has been functioning for more than 60 years, producing sugar and growing crops. The enterprise salary is one the highest in such an industry type. One more thing, many family dynasties are working at plant and its agricultural enterprises. The personnel issues are already solved successfully. Sergey Viktorovich Shatokhin, executive director of the enterprise, has talked about production success and sugar policy at Uspensky Sakharnik.

- A Russian Sugar Production Union is a leading industry type cooperation of country manufacturers. According to their annual reports for year's results the enterprise Uspensky Sakharnik is the leader of market. Depending on a year, you constantly take the first, second or third place as the biggest sugar manufacturer in Russia. How does the enterprise manage to keep a high processing performance during many years?

- Everything has started in 1998 when our Group of Companies of Prodimex has become our plant's shareholder. In theory, the capacity of sugar beet processing at that moment was about 4 thousand tonnes a day at our enterprise. We offered to make a reconstruction by increasing the processing ability up to 6-7 thousand tonnes a day, but the shareholder decided to raise up it by 10 thousand tonnes. From one year to another, the plant built up its processing capacities thanks to technical retrofitting and upgrading. Thanks to modernization executed every year, today an average sugar beet processing is 12 thousand tonnes a day. We are the first in Russia who made such a modernization and chose such a processing type. Today the Uspensky Sakharnik part on sugar beet processing in Krasnodarsky region is estimated as almost 14%, and the white sugar production is for 15%.

At the same time as reconstruction with the support of shareholder the plant has started creating its own raw material base, investing in land for a stable work and a guaranteed supply of raw material to the plant. Under the general supervision of sugar plant new agricultural societies were established from 2004 to 2010: Agrosakhar, Agrosakhar-2 and Agrosakhar-3. In 2008 the Group of Companies of Prodimex has purchased a stud farm named Urupsky. They recruited people, bought a new machinery. These new enterprises have became general suppliers of raw material for the plant. Agricultural enterprises are an integral part in production cycle where 42 thousand hectares of ploughland are processed. During the best years more than 1 million tonnes of sugar beet is cultivated on fields of agricultural companies.

- Sergey Victorovich, the harvest campaign is in full swing. Is it high time for preprocessing results of this year?

- Our plant processes annually over 200 thousand tonnes of sand sugar out of sugar beet, about 60 thousand tonnes of granular pulp and more than 65 thousand tonnes of molasses. These are secondary production of sugar beet processing. Molasses is a precious raw material for many food and mixed fodder industries but a beet-pulp is used for cattle fodder. Drying and pelletizing of pulp increases the terms of storage and transportation possibilities. Approximately the same volumes will be produced in this year as well.

Additionally, this year we have produced about 126 thousand tonnes of barley and wheat. We export pelletized pulp to EU countries, Turkey, Great Britain, Morocco and other countries. We export molasses to EU countries as well. We keep a small portion for our own cattle-breeding complex because we have our own dairy farms with milk yields of up to 8.8 tonnes per cow. We also cultivate potatoes (from 12 to 15 thousand tons annually) for PepsiCo, which are used to production of Lays chips. We start delivering an improved sugar to Coca-Cola company.

- How do you resolve the issue of raw material supply?

Now we process only 55% of beet from all processing and we know the disadvantage of our raw material base. We make arrangements with other partners in different types of industries which became our reliable partners for many years of cooperation. These are the closest to us enterprises — agricultural-industrial cooperative societies Kazminsky named in honor of Lenin and Rossiya. In order to preserve and develop the sugar beet-growing area, the plant, under the supervision of Group of Companies of Prodimex, provides annually beet farmers with supplier's credit in form of beet seeds, crop protection agents, fertilizers, sugar beet harvesters, petroleum, oils, and lubricants, and supplier's credit in form of sugar. From their part, the plant provides third-party manufacturers with a priority delivery of sugar beet, and the harvesting of its own sugar beet is postponed until the end of the harvest campaign.

- Viktoria Abramchenko, Deputy Chairman of the Government, speaking about the processing indicators of Russia's agricultural-industrial complex highlighted in her recent speech at the agricultural show that “one of our priorities is that we keep in mind comfortable living conditions of our farmers." What has the enterprise done for it?

- People see the plant develop, a lot of money is being invested in all our agricultural business, and they have been supporting us with their work for many years. For all the time, over $800 million has been invested in Uspensky Sakharnik. Therefore, we have stability, which is primarily the result of the employees’ work at plant, each of our agrarians, from the milker and combiner to the executive director.

The sugar plant is a seasonal enterprise. For all the time of its existence we have never sent people on leave without pay after the harvesting and processing of sugar beet. On the contrary, all employees are constantly busy at work. On farms you have to feed and milk the cattle, clean up after it the whole year round. At the plant you have to repair the machinery, prepare the equipment for the new campaign.

It is worth mentioning that we additionally train our employees in related specialties so that they can do all the work, including necessary repairs. For example, operators at each station are qualified as welders and can perform welding works. Thanks to the sale of sugar and related processed products we are able to pay salaries in time, make current payments, maintain all technological equipment and upgrade core production.

- The main issue in rural areas is always an issue of human resources...

A great infrastructure is created in Kuban and all possibilities for its development. We participate in social regional programs with the Group of Companies of Prodimex to make young generation stay and work in rural areas.

As for out sugar plant, we transfer up to 5 mln. rubles a year for schools, preschools and sport complexes located in rural areas, where our employees live. We help to rural administrations. For instance, we allocated 2.5 million rubles for the engineering of a new boiler-room in Uspensky Sakharnik.

We have agreed with Uspensky Agricultural College to hold a half of the training sessions at our enterprises. Each student has its own farm machinery operator who teaches him/her to work really on land. Final year students are already working and get paid.

Under the agreement with Krasnodar Polytechnic University, students undertake undergraduate training at our plant. Some of them after graduation come to us for permanent work, and two of our employees are now improving skills as postgraduate students. We are very interested in that young farm machinery operators (graduates of Uspensky Agricultural College) come to us after their studies.

Uspensky Sakharnik is a city-forming enterprise. But an effective management system is organized first of all by people. In addition, I think that outstanding specialists work here.

- How to keep such professionals?

- Firstly, it is a respectable salary paid in time. An average salary amount at Uspensky Sakharnik is 53.4 thousand rubles. Best workers are paid 70 thousand rubles monthly. In farm businesses an average monthly salary is 49.3 thousand rubles, the farm machinery operators’ monthly salary varies from 60 to 150 thousand rubles, depending on their contribution to the total enterprise performance. We are to raise salaries for our employees. For that, we must work better and produce more products.

Secondly, we use all opportunities of public housing. Not a single specialist rents accommodation. We provide them with concessional loans for buying a house, with financial assistance to join governmental programs on buying a house and improvement of housing conditions.

Thirdly, there are fringe benefits. For example, those who have served in the army and have returned are paid an average salary for the year of service. Retired people are paid monthly a supplement to their pension depending on their length of service at the plant. Everyone who has been worked at the enterprise for more than three years receives a supplement for loyalty to the enterprise.

Taking care of our employees is one of our priority. We pay great attention to labor dynasties.

For instance, the son of our former chief engineer, who has been worked for 34 years, has been working as the chief engineer for about ten years as well. Many of our employees have only one record in their work history report, they have worked at the plant for the whole life. All of our chief and mid-level specialists have passed training in working professions, so they have a good understanding of production procedures.

In recent years social responsibility of business is being discussed a lot...

The confirmation of this is a high standard of living and regular salaries, which are the highest in the district.

During the last five years Uspenskiy Sakharnik and our agricultural enterprises have paid 6 billion 94 million rubles to the budgets of different types. This money is used to maintain various sensitive receptors. If we divide this amount by the number of our employees, starting with a cattleman or a milker and ending with the heads of the enterprise, each of them has paid 1.5 million rubles in taxes a year.

The village of Uspenskoye and our plant have changed for the better over the past 20 years. Everyone understands that money is invested in the development of the enterprise, it is developing, and the employees are taken care of here. People feel stability and see further prospects. Uspensky Sakharnik is one of the largest sugar producers in Russia and takes part of the Group of Companies of Prodimex, which unites 14 sugar plants. The plant produces annually more than 200 thousand tonnes of sand sugar out of sugar beet, about 60 thousand tonnes of granular pulp and more than 65 thousand tonnes of molasses. The enterprise's market share in the Krasnodar region in sugar beet processing is 14%, and in white sugar production is 15%. Processing capacity is 12 thousand tons of sugar beet per day.

In 2004, with the participation of the sugar plant a new agricultural enterprise Agrosugar was established, as well as, Agrosugar-2, an agricultural enterprise, — in 2006 and Agrosugar-3, an agricultural enterprise, — in 2010, which became the main suppliers of raw materials to the plant. In 2008, the Urupsky stud farm was acquired. Today, farms cultivate more than 42 thousand hectares of ploughland.